Profile of Vincent Foster on Famous Like Me

Vincent Walker Foster, Jr. (January 15, 1945 – July 20, 1993) was an attorney who worked for U.S. President Bill Clinton. His death in 1993, shortly after Clinton took office, was officially ruled a suicide by several investigations, including one by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr.

Foster, a childhood friend of Bill Clinton, had worked at the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas with Hillary Clinton and had difficulty making the transition to life and politics in Washington. He was only a deputy counsel, but he was personally the target of several hostile Wall Street Journal editorials. Wrestling with clinical depression, he was prescribed Trazodone over the phone by his doctor, though he could have only taken a few at most before he died. The next day, Foster committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a .38 caliber pistol. He was 48 years old, and left behind a widow, Lisa, and three children.

His body was discovered in Fort Marcy Park, a federal park in Virginia. A suicide note of sorts was found torn into 27 pieces in his briefcase, a list of complaints specifically mentioning the Wall Street Journal and complaining "I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here ruining people is considered sport."

His funeral Mass was held at St. Andrew's (Roman) Catholic Church in Little Rock, despite his purported suicide and he was buried in Memory Gardens Cemetery in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas.

Conspiracy Theory

Despite the fact that Foster was officially described as having shot himself in the mouth and as lacking any other wounds, many Americans find the official report questionable. Accuracy in Media has made available a transcript of an interview with Miguel Rodriguez, who resigned from the investigation, in which he states, "I knew what the result was going to be, because I was told what the result was going to be from the get-go." . Based on this and other variables some go so far as to propose that Foster was murdered to prevent him revealing information derogatory to Clinton.

Although it has been maintained that he was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at that site, no bullet fragments were ever found and very little blood was present at the body's final location. This has engendered suspicions that the body had been moved from another location to the park site. Further fueling allegations of possible impropriety was the unusual discharge of blood from the wound on Foster's head. While he was located on an incline, the trickle of blood ran contrary to gravity. No explanation was offered to explain this odd phenomenon. The U.S. Park Police were assigned to investigate the murder but no more information was ever disclosed.

With respect to this case, conspiracy theorists are divided into two groups. Some suspect that Foster committed suicide in a location that was embarrassing to figures connected to the Clinton administration and that government agents dumped his body in the park to avoid any embarrassment. Others suspect that Foster died from a shot from a small-caliber pistol to the neck and his body was dumped in the park. A book by Christopher Andersen entitled Bill and Hillary: The Marriage claims there was an affair between Foster and Hillary Clinton and some claim that this supposed affair has some relation to Foster's death.

Neither Clinton nor any members of his staff have publicly addressed the speculations that arose from Foster's death. Since investigators at the time formally ruled that the cause of death was suicide, the conspiracy theories remain unsubstantiated to this day.

Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, a Republican lawyer who investigated the Clintons on several other issues, including Whitewater, concluded after a three-year investigation that Starr had shot himself. Urban legend debunking website Snopes.com cites this as proof that Foster was not murdered, claiming "If Foster had been murdered or if unanswered questions about his death remained, Starr would have been the last person to want to conclude the investigation prematurely."

See Whitewater scandal, Health Management Associates Scandal

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