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City manager discussed committing suicide
By ANNE LINDBERG, Times Staff Writer
PINELLAS PARK -- City Manager Jerry Mudd talked of committing suicide just days before he stabbed himself last month, according to police reports. The report draws a picture of a troubled man who complained of job stress, anxiety and depression in the months before his death. Added to the emotional mix was physical pain: Mr. Mudd was at home recuperating from gall bladder surgery and had complained of severe shoulder and back pain for years. He had taken medications for those conditions but reduced the dosages in the days before his Feb. 11 death, according to the reports released Friday. The Pinellas County medical examiner ruled Mr. Mudd's death a suicide. A toxicology report released Wednesday indicated he apparently did not have enough painkillers and other prescription drugs in his system to influence his emotional state, according to pharmacology experts. Mudd's statement about suicide came as he and his wife, Ethel, lay in bed talking. According to a report by Pinellas Park police Officer Donna Saxer, Mrs. Mudd told officers that her husband said, "I don't want you to tell anyone, but I've been thinking about committing suicide all night." She then asked Mudd if he would ever do such a thing and he said, "No, I love you." That was the weekend before Mudd stabbed himself through the heart. The reports describe Mudd's last day as normal, though he was neither eating nor sleeping well. He went to bed between 7:30 and 8 p.m. on Feb. 10. Mrs. Mudd went to the office area and used the computer. Around 3:30 a.m., Mudd came into the computer room and talked for a while with his wife. "Her husband began speaking of their life together and was commenting on several family photos that were hanging on the walls," Detective Michael Lynch wrote in the report. "A short time later, her husband returned to the master bedroom, which was the last time she saw her husband alive." Saxer's report says Mr. Mudd commented at one point: "We had some good times, didn't we?" Mrs. Mudd slept on the couch that night because she did not want to disturb her husband. When she awoke around 8 a.m., she found the bedroom door locked. After pounding on the door and windows, she picked the lock with a seam ripper. When she entered, she could see into the bathroom where her husband was slumped over in the tub. She tried to call for help but was unable to do so because of a neighborhood electrical outage. Mrs. Mudd ran outside and asked a neighbor for help. Mudd left a six-sentence suicide note about job stress, especially a City Council decision to pay off some water and sewer bonds. The council last summer ordered that they be paid off to save interest costs, but they were not redeemed until after Mudd's death. The failure to promptly pay the bonds cost Pinellas Park $67,177 in interest. Mudd had said in January that he thought the bonds had been paid, discovering otherwise after firing finance administrator Dick Wheaton. He'd fired Wheaton for twice neglecting to send enough money to city pension plans. Wheaton maintains Mr. Mudd knew the bonds had not been paid, but in his suicide note Mr. Mudd repeated he had been unaware. He also wrote it troubled him to cause pain to others even when necessary for the public interest. He asked for forgiveness. Interim City Manager Mike Gustafson said firing or disciplining employees always distressed Mudd, even making him lose sleep. But Gustafson said Mudd had not indicated that Wheaton's firing caused him special heartache. During his five years as city manager, Mudd had fired or disciplined many employees, including the dismissal of Assistant City Manager Peggy McGarrity and the attempted firing of a police chief. The chief, David Milchan, retired before Mudd could complete the termination. Both moves were more controversial than the Wheaton firing.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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