Front-page suicide

Miami

A disgraced Miami politician, Art Teele, shot himself in the head inside the headquarters of The Miami Herald last week, hours after another newspaper published a lurid account of sex and corruption charges against him. The former city and county commissioner was already facing two corruption indictments, and prosecutors were preparing more charges. The final embarrassment came when a weekly paper, the Miami New Times, printed a story headlined Tales of Teele: Sleaze Stories, describing Teele’s alleged dealings with drug dealers and a transvestite prostitute. Shortly before killing himself, Teele phoned a Herald columnist and asked, “Who did I piss off in this town?”