Mississippi Tea Party Leader Found Dead A tea party leader tied to alleged political dirty tricks that rattled Republicans in Mississippi and beyond is dead -- shot once in the head in an apparent suicide, according to police. Police officers in Ridgeland, Mississippi, found Mark Mayfields body shortly after 9 a.m. Friday on the floor of a storage room in his garage. Because all of the indications, it appears to be suicide, but we still got some things to look into, Ridgeland police Chief Jimmy Houston told CNN. He left a suicide note, and we are verifying its validity. Authorities havent disclosed the contents of that note or why Mayfield might have taken his life. Tea Party leader in election scandal dies McDaniel: Miss. election not fair Scandal hits Mississippi primary Yet the lawyer and Mississippi Tea Party leader has been under fire for the past month, having been charged with three others -- according to The Clarion-Ledger newspaper -- in connection to a blogger accused of taking a picture of Sen. Thad Cochrans wife in her nursing home bed. This came a week after the blogger, Clayton Kelly, was himself charged. All were apparent allies of conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who was then engaged in an ugly primary battle to see who would be the GOP Senate candidate from Mississippi. The photo of Cochrans wife -- who suffers from dementia and has lived in a nursing home for 14 years -- surfaced in a political attack ad on YouTube that aimed to smear Cochran, The Clarion-Ledger reported. Its unclear how the photo was used because the ad was removed within hours of being posted, according to the newspaper. This episode and others further inflamed the rhetoric in the primary fight. Cochrans spokesman Jordan Russell, for example, said last month that Mayfield and the others arrests raises even more questions the McDaniel campaign needs to answer. But on Friday, Cochran -- who narrowly edged McDaniel in Tuesdays primary -- and his team showed only sympathy upon hearing about Mayfields death. This is very much a tragic and sad situation, said Austin Barbour, a senior adviser to Cochrans campaign. Mark was a really good guy. On behalf of Sen. Cochran and all of us for the campaign, our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and his friends. ~ Paul Steinhauser and Greg Botelho, CNN (Read more: cnn/2014/06/27/politics/mississippi-tea-party-leader-dies/index.html)
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 01:22:04 +0000
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