Double Suicide Believed Linked to AIDS

Two men were found dead in their home in Clairemont Wednesday, apparent victims of what the police called an AIDS-related double suicide.

Sgt. Dave Douglas said police responded to a call about 3:40 p.m. from an executive who said one of his employees had not reported to work in more than a week.

Police entered the home in the 4900 block of Gallatin Way, where they found one victim dead in the bedroom from “an apparent overdose of drugs in combination with alcohol,” Douglas said. It was estimated he had been dead more than a week.

Douglas said a second man was found dead in the garage. He had apparently hanged himself by climbing a stepladder and draping a nylon rope over the rafters. Douglas said officers were puzzled that the second victim appeared to have been dead only a few hours.

“The subjects left a computer-generated suicide note on the distribution of their property and instructions on the sale of their house,” he added.

Names were being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Scott Fulkerson, executive director of the Lesbian and Gay Men’s Community Center, the primary mental health agency for AIDS victims in San Diego County, said Wednesday night, “There’s always a higher risk of suicide among people with AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). We can make a really good intervention when services are available to such people. The vast majority of victims are helped through such a time and helped to live better.

“We reach out as best we can, but we can’t reach everyone with the resources we have. Society just hasn’t come to grips with this problem yet. As a society, I’m afraid we’re still saying, ‘If you’re gay, we don’t care if you have AIDS. You can take care of the problem yourself.’ ”

A spokesman for the San Diego AIDS Project said that no statistics are kept on AIDS-related suicides.