HARRISBURG (TNS) — An unhinged politician. A room full of reporters and photographers. And a .357 Magnum tucked in a manila envelope.
These three volatile elements combusted on Jan. 22, 1987, into one of the most enduring and shocking episodes in Pennsylvania history.
It began as a press conference in the state’s Finance Building in which everyone expected state Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer, convicted of corruption, to announce his resignation.
But as a sweaty, rambling Dwyer railed against his perceived political enemies, including the press, sudden fear swept the room crowded with nearly three-dozen journalists. Dwyer, finally ceasing his long diatribe, had reached into a yellow envelope, revealing his long-barreled handgun.
“One of the things I most remember is when Mr. Dwyer pulled out his revolver, at first people in the press thought he was going to shoot them,” said R. Thomas Berner, then journalism and American studies professor at Penn State, where the Dwyer case became a subject of study.
“Part of his rambling speech was that he was crucified in the press,” Berner added. “I think journalists are and have always been under some kind of assault, regardless.”
Rising fear
Fear among the assembled press was palpable, said Greg Penny, who was then Dwyer’s deputy press secretary.
“A lot of reporters were concerned for their safety,” Penny said. “Budd had been very critical of a lot of news coverage. Initially, a number of the reporters were worried he might shoot them.”
Among them was Kenn Marshall, then a capitol reporter for the Patriot-News. He was standing by the office door, ready to bolt. But not because he expected Dwyer to pull out a gun.
Rather, Marshall’s assignment that morning was to call in a report to the newspaper desk just as soon as the disgraced public servant announced his resignation.
“We were there to see him resign,” Marshall said. Dwyer’s federal sentencing in a high-profile bribery case was scheduled for the following day.
Dwyer’s delivery of his speech became more and more unhinged.
“It was a very rambling, disjointed speech,” Marshall recalled. “He was pretty much railing against everyone in Harrisburg, from (then) Gov. Thornburgh to the judicial system to the media.”
Marshall described Dwyer’s increasingly troubling demeanor that morning as, “Upset. Agitated. Sweating.”
The longer Dwyer droned on, it became clear he was losing the room.
“I think everyone on the room was thinking, ‘What the heck is going on?’” Marshall said. “One of the TV crews started breaking down their equipment. At that point, he said, ‘you don’t want to leave.’”
Reaches for gun
That’s when Dwyer cut short his angry rants and impassioned protestations of innocence. He leaned from the podium to an adjacent table, pulling out three letter-sized envelopes from the briefcase. He handed one each to three of his aides. It was later revealed that one contained Dwyer’s organ donation card. Another was a letter asking Gov. Thornburgh to appoint Dwyer’s wife to fill out his term. (He did not.)
The next item Dwyer reached for was the .357 Magnum.
“That’s when it really got hairy,” Marshall said.
What transpired next happened in mere moments. But the shocked mind has a way of slowing down time. Marshall recalled a collective gasp at the sight of the large revolver in Dwyer’s right hand.
“In this situation we were in, it looked like a cannon,” Marshall said. “All I could see was the gun.”
The room of reporters seemed to shrink away from the weapon, he added.
“My immediate thought was he was going to turn that gun on people in the room. There were other journalists who thought that too,” Marshall said. “Initially, it was just pure panic. No one knew for sure what was going to happen.”
Standing near the door, Marshall considered bolting right then and there.
“My thought was, ‘I am at the door, I can get out of here’,” he recalled. “I honestly thought, I’m going to get out of here. Yeah, I was scared!”
Yet, for some reason still unknown to Marshall, he didn’t act on his instinct for flight.
“A lot of other people were ducking,” he added. “A lot of people were scared to death. He had really torn into the media. A lot of us felt he was going to turn that gun on some of the people in that room.”
The
shocking moment
But Dwyer never did aim his weapon at the press. He held the gun with its barrel pointed at the ceiling and backed toward the wall behind him.
“Please, please leave the room if this will … if this will affect you,” Dwyer announced.
In this instant, Dwyer’s true intent became clear.
That’s when cries of “No, Budd don’t!” and “Stop!” echoed in the room. A few reporters even made a move to try and stop Dwyer, both Marshall and Penny said.
Among them was former WGAL News 8 reporter Gene Schenck, an ex-Army Ranger, who attempted to hop the large table that formed a barricade between Dwyer and rest of the room.
If anything, however, the physical attempts to stop Dwyer only quickened the end, Penny and Marshall said.
“If anybody was going to be able to stop (Dwyer), it was him,” Marshall said of Schenck. “But nobody was going to stop him from doing what he set out to do that day. He obviously put thought into it.”
Dwyer was determined to end things on his terms. The speed of what happened next was startling, witnesses said.
“When he backed himself against the wall, he held his hand out and warned people to stay back,” Marshall said. “Then he put the gun in his mouth.”
As soon as the gun barrel slipped behind Dwyer’s lips, there was a single shot muffled by his mouth. With that, the tall, bear-like politician collapsed in a heap to the floor. He went down like a marionette whose strings have been cut, witnesses said.
The aftermath
In the immediate aftermath, those who were there often speak of operating on autopilot.
Marshall dashed to the phone. “I did exactly what I planned to do when I entered the room,” he said. “I don’t know. I guess it was instinct. I was just doing my job. I probably wasn’t thinking.”
Marshall dialed the Evening News desk. To his surprise, the editor who answered already knew of the shooting. Long before the instantaneous nature of the Internet, news that Dwyer shot himself traveled with surprising speed, even in the old-world of broadcast media.
By killing himself before his federal sentence could be handed down, Dwyer also preserved his $1.28 million pension for his wife and two children. From a legal standpoint, Dwyer’s conviction was never final because he killed himself before his sentencing.
What the embattled politician didn’t accomplish was a full re-examination of the corruption case that had destroyed him.
The month before his suicide, Dwyer and former GOP state Chairman Robert Asher were convicted by a jury of 11 counts each, stemming from an agreement to award a $4.6 million Treasury Department data processing contract to Computer Technology Associates, a California computer firm, in return for campaign contributions. Each faced up to 55 years in prison.
The case revolved around a conspiracy under which Dwyer and the state GOP was to accept a $300,000 kickback on the sole-source contract. But no money ever changed hands; the prosecution hinged on testimony of others involved who took plea deals.
In committing suicide, Dwyer stepped on his own message, Marshall said.
“I don’t think anybody remembers what he said. He was hoping it would bring about these major reforms,” Marshall said. “There wasn’t much follow-up on what he was hoping would happen.”
Lasting legacy
Instead, Dwyer’s enduring legacy is that of a disgraced, desperate politician who took his life in the most shocking way possible, Marshall said.
“I think it’s pretty close to the top in Pennsylvania political history — unfortunately,” he said.
So much so, Dwyer’s elected successor to the office, Democrat Catherine Baker Knoll, delighted in showing her guests the bullet hole Dwyer’s suicide shot had bored into the ceiling, Penny said.
The hole remains to this day.
So do the memories, especially among those who witnessed it.
“Thirty-five years later, they’ll still remembering it,” Marshall said. “Pennsylvania has had more than its share of political corruption, but those names come and go. A lot of people remember Budd Dwyer. He’s the guy who shot himself at a press conference.”
