Developer, Jailed Awaiting Trial, Electrocutes Himself

A real estate developer awaiting trial in a multimillion-dollar bank-loan fraud case electrocuted himself in jail, a sheriff’s spokesman said today.

J. R. McConnell, 40, was discovered by a guard in a medical unit at the Harris County Jail before 4 a.m. Monday.

“It appears he had some type of electrical cord and inserted it into one of the electric outlets that are of necessity in that medical area and inserted the other end into another electrical outlet and used himself to complete the circuit,” sheriff’s Lt. G. L. Moore said.

McConnell had been in the medical ward since he tried to hang himself in his cell on March 21.

Moore said that a note was found on a table next to McConnell’s bed but that it was “somewhat illegible and we’re attempting to decipher what it says.”

McConnell surrendered to federal authorities last November when he got off a plane from Mexico after vanishing for more than a year. He was indicted in October on charges that he and five associates last year arranged loans for $4.2 million through fraud, including false ownership papers for property posted as collateral.

In October, 1986, he filed for bankruptcy. A court-appointed trustee’s report said McConnell and the 10 companies included in the filing owed $427 million against $281 million in assets.