Farmer Facing Sale of Property Commits Suicide

A farmer shot himself to death about 20 minutes before his property was to be auctioned at the county courthouse, authorities said Wednesday.

Burke County Sheriff Greg Coursey said L. D. Hill III, 67, shot himself at his east Georgia home Tuesday.

“He wanted to stop the sale, which, in fact, he did,” Coursey said, adding that Hill’s death officially has been ruled a suicide.

“It just tore us up when we heard about it,” said David Morgan of Dublin, president of the Federal Land Bank of Central Georgia and the Farmers Production Credit Assn., a federal agency that held the note on Hill’s 700-acre farm.

Loans to Farmer

Morgan said the credit association had loaned Hill money through the Federal Intermediate Credit Bank of Columbia, S.C. He declined to say how much Hill owed.

“I’m anticipating more of this, especially as foreclosures pick up in the next three or four months,” Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin said. “It’s a traumatic experience for farmers to feel they’re a failure, even when, most of the time, the failure is beyond their control.”

Agriculture Department spokesman Steve Rich said the Federal Land Bank and the credit association have begun foreclosure proceedings against 293 of Georgia’s 50,000 farms. In addition, the federal Farmers Home Administration plans to notify about 4,000 farmers they may face foreclosure if they do not make plans to restructure their debt, he said.

‘Not Worth a Life’

“I certainly hope no one would commit suicide because of delinquent debt,” said Raymond Bryant, chief of farmer programs for the FmHA in Georgia. “It’s not worth taking a life because of material things.”

Morgan said Hill had visited credit association officials in Waynesboro before the auction to see if he could sell part of his property to relieve the debt.

“It wouldn’t have been enough,” Morgan said. “We had been working with Mr. Hill for over a year, and it just got to the point where it looked like there was nothing he or we could do.”

Morgan said the auction has not been rescheduled.

Coursey said Hill is survived by three daughters and two sons.