Did You Know...

In the late afternoon of Sept. 6, several hours before Norman Hsu was apprehended in Colorado, I got a curious visit on my website. Someone had Googled “Norman Hsu suicide.” My site came up in the search results because someone had made reference to Vince Foster’s suicide in the comments of one of my Hsu posts.

According to my public Sitemeter referral log, the visitor who Googled “Norman Hsu suicide” came from this law firm: Sack Harris & Martin, P.C., in McLean, Va.

I thought it was strange, made a mental note of the search, and bookmarked the law firm’s website, but did not blog about it.

In light of the Wall Street Journal’s new article today, though, I think the info is worth mentioning. The WSJ reports:

Before Democratic fund-raiser Norman Hsu skipped a court hearing and temporarily vanished last week, he typed out a suicide note and sent copies to several acquaintances and charitable organizations, according to people who received it.

The one-page note, signed by Mr. Hsu, “very explicitly said he intended to commit suicide,” said one of the recipients in an account corroborated by others, including law-enforcement officials. Mr. Hsu also apologized for putting anybody “through inconvenience or trouble,” the recipient said.

The letter, which began, “To whom it may concern,” arrived by FedEx at the addresses of several recipients last Thursday, the day after Mr. Hsu disappeared.

As the letters arrived, Mr. Hsu was on a Chicago-bound train from California. He fell ill and was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., where he was arrested. Yesterday he was released from the hospital and transferred to the Mesa County Jail, pending extradition back to California.

A spokesman for Mr. Hsu said he wouldn’t comment about the letter.

In the letter, Mr. Hsu wrote he was very upset by a wave of press in recent weeks that raised questions about his political fund-raising and business activities. Among other things, the articles brought attention to a 1991 fraud charge in California, to which he had pleaded no contest and then disappeared before his sentencing hearing.

Hsu was booked into Mesa County’s jail yesterday and will be extradited to San Mateo County, Calif.

Flip Pidot wonders: “Here’s what I don’t get – if Hsu was indeed suicidal over the “wave of press in recent weeks that raised questions about his political fund-raising and business activities,” and he FedExed the suicide note before getting on the train with a fistful of pills, why the coordinated attempts at suicide and unlawful flight? Was one backup, in case the other didn’t work?”