News Conference Scene of Suicide : Pennsylvania Treasurer Facing Prison Fires Gun Into Mouth

Pennsylvania’s treasurer, facing jail for defrauding the state, proclaimed his innocence at a news conference Thursday but said, “It’s too late for me,” then pulled a pistol from a manila envelope, put it into his mouth and killed himself.

R. Budd Dwyer died instantly after he fired a single shot from a .357 magnum pistol in front of two dozen reporters, photographers and aides, Dauphin County Coroner William Bush said.

“No, No! Budd, don’t do this!” several people gathered in Dwyer’s office suite in the state Finance Building screamed just before he pulled the trigger.

Moments after the shot was fired, someone cried, “Dear God in heaven.”

Dwyer’s son, Robert, 21, said his father had given the family no indication of what he intended to do.

“We’re pretty broken up,” he said during a telephone interview. He said he heard the news at the family home in Hershey with his mother, Joanne, and sister, Dyan, 18.

The attorney general’s office on Wednesday had declared that Dwyer, 47, would be out of office as soon as he was sentenced today in federal court in Williamsport. Prior to that, Dwyer, a Republican who had been elected to his second term in 1984, had planned to stay in office on a leave of absence without pay until his appeal was resolved.

Payoff Conviction

A jury in December convicted Dwyer of awarding a $4.6-million no-bid contract in May, 1984, to Computer Technology Associates of Newport Beach, Calif., in return for a promised $300,000 payoff. No money ever changed hands and the contract was canceled.

He faced up to 55 years in prison for five counts of mail fraud, four counts of interstate transportation in aid of racketeering, one count of perjury and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery.

At the news conference, Dwyer read a rambling, half-hour statement in which he said he was a victim of the legal system.

Stops Cameramen

He held up his hands when he saw some television cameramen start taking down their equipment and told them: “You don’t want to take down your equipment yet.”

Then, he reached into the large envelope, telling those people nearby: “Stay away, this thing will hurt someone.”

When Dwyer pulled the gun from the envelope, two reporters near the back of the room ran into the hallway and yelled for police.

“Get a cop, he’s got a gun,” yelled Stephen Drachler, a reporter for the Morning Call in Allentown.

Fred Cusick, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, was in the front row at the time of the shooting.

“I should have run and grabbed him when he pulled out the envelope,” Cusick said. “I knew that was it.”

Just before he pulled the gun, Dwyer called acting treasurer Donald L. Johnson and two other aides to his side. He handed each of them sealed envelopes that he said contained instructions for them to read later.

Bush, the coroner, said he wants to know what was written on the envelopes and whether any of them were opened before the shooting occurred. If they were, he said, someone may have had time to prevent Dwyer’s suicide.

Expected Resignation

Treasury spokesman Duke Horshock said after the shooting that “the expectation was that he was using this forum to resign his position. . . . He said he was going to give an update on his status.”

But Dwyer’s 19-page typed statement made no reference to resigning. At several points he used phrases like “it’s too late for me” and “as my political career draws to a close.”

Dwyer reportedly left instructions for his own funeral and an organ donor card. He also wrote in a statement released after his death that his public suicide would be the “story of the decade.”

He gave his lawyer, Paul Killion, a letter for newly installed Gov. Robert P. Casey asking that Casey nominate his wife as his successor.

In his statement, Dwyer criticized the media, acting U.S. Atty. James West, who prosecuted his case, former Gov. Dick Thornburgh and senior U.S. District Judge Malcolm Muir.

Claims Innocence

Dwyer said the judge had a history of imposing “medieval sentences.” He also said he was “being punished for a crime I did not commit.”

In the last page of a news release, which was not handed out to the media at the news conference and never was read by Dwyer, he wrote: “Last May, I told you that after the trial I would give you the story of the decade. To those of you who are shallow, the events of this morning will be that story.”

The statement also bemoaned the lack of a “true justice system” and urged the media to “tell my story on every radio and television station and in every newspaper and magazine in the United States.”

It concluded: “Please leave immediately if you have a weak stomach or mind. . . . Joanne, Rob, Deedee--I love you! Thank you for making my life so happy. Goodbye to all of you on the count of three. Please make sure that the sacrifice of my life is not in vain.”

The suicide was replayed on some television stations throughout the day. Other stations refused to show the entire scene.