David Teather in New York Saturday January 26, 2002 The Guardian
A former top executive of the failed US energy firm Enron who had strongly criticised the company's murky accounting methods was found dead in his car yesterday from a gunshot wound to the head.
John (Clifford) Baxter was found by police on a routine patrol in the affluent Houston, Texas, suburb of Sugar Land at about 2.30am yesterday morning. He was alone in his Mercedes and a suicide note was found.
His death deepens the mystery surrounding the collapse of Enron, which has threatened to engulf the Bush administration, left thousands of workers without jobs or savings and could bring down one of the oldest names in the accounting profession, Arthur Andersen.
Baxter, 43, the company's former vice-chairman, was said to have "complained mightily" about the Enron transactions which hid its vast debts in offshore ventures and eventually led to the company's collapse.
Police said yesterday there were no signs of foul play but would not release the contents of the potentially explosive suicide note until an investigation was complete.
Baxter had been identified by congressional investigators as a potential key witness in the efforts to uncover how the spectacular collapse of Enron, once ranked the seventh largest company in the US, came about. He had reported directly to Kenneth Lay, the former chairman and chief executive of Enron who is a friend and financial backer of President Bush.
Despite reservations about Enron's methods Baxter, who left the company in May, was among the company's top executives who made their fortune from the sale of Enron shares.
He sold $35m in stock options, $9m of that in 2001. He was one of 29 executives who made a total of $1.1bn in the space of a few years and now face a class action brought by former workers who lost their life savings in the collapse.
Baxter, who joined Enron in 1991, was named in a prescient whistle-blowing letter written by a former colleague last August, which warned the company could "implode in a wave of accounting scandals".
The letter's author, Sherren Watkins, wrote that he had complained "to anyone who would listen about the inappropriateness" of dealings with the offshore ventures being used to hide Enron's debts.
Through her lawyer, Ms Watkins said she was "stunned" by Baxter's death and had received no indication that he was depressed or suicidal.
She called him a "straight shooter and a man with high moral ethics" who was not comfortable with what he saw going on at Enron.
The calamitous fall of Enron has had a huge impact, stretching from the rules governing the accountancy profession to the policy on funding political campaigns. The collapse is the subject of at least 10 investigations.
Links between the Bush administration and Enron have come under intense scrutiny. Enron was Mr Bush's biggest single backer during his election campaign and played a role in shaping the government's energy policy.
As the company began to sink, senior executives made a number of direct appeals for aid from the US government, although there is no evidence that anyone within the administration offered to help.
According to research published in the New York Times, of the 248 senators and House members on the various committees investigating Enron's collapse, 212 have received contributions from Enron or Arthur Andersen since 1989.
Baxter was described by another former colleague, Michael Miller, as a "straightforward, honest kind of guy, very interested in doing what was right for the organisation".
Enron said it was "deeply saddened" by his death.