As details about journalist Michael Hastings’ death remain unanswered following the release of a coroner’s report, a neighbor says the late reporter was afraid to get in his own car hours before he died in high-speed crash June 18 in Hollywood. Hastings, 33, was killed when his Mercedes coupe crashed into a tree just before 5 a.m. that morning, and details about the collision have been contested in the months since. A friend of Hastings said days later that the reporter believed he was being investigated by the government, and the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks said one of their attorneys was contacted by Hastings hours before his death. In the aftermath, conspiracists floated the possibility that Hastings’ car had been hacked, or perhaps a hit had been ordered to take him out before another big story could stir up the political world. Hastings’ previous works had led to serious consequences for many of those in power. Most famously, a 2010 Rolling Stone article by Hastings had directly led to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s 2010 resignation as US commander in Afghanistan. On June 17, Hastings allegedly told his colleagues that that he was going off the radar for a bit because he was working on a big story. Now only furthering skepticism about the journalist’s demise, his neighbor tells the Los Angeles Weekly that Hastings was terrified to get in his own car hours before he died inside of it. Jordanna Thigpen tells LA Weekly that Hastings approached her in the early hours of June 18 and pleaded with her to hand over her Volvo.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 06:32:27 +0000
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