John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017.
In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.
Boeing said it was saddened to hear of Mr Barnett’s passing. The Charleston County coroner confirmed his death to the BBC on Monday.
It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.
They do have an disincentive, its called decades in jail if its discovered you kill him.
Exactly this. In a fucked up way a rule like that would actually incentivise whistleblowers to become martyrs.
There should be presumption of guilt in this case.
What?? No that’s ridiculous. People do kill themselves sometimes.
Then they’d be interested to hire him all kinds of councilors and security guards so that he doesn’t kill himself.
What? And break into his home so he can’t?
That’ll cost them less money and years of not seeing daylight, so why not.
Because don’t you think that in itself is a form of witness intimidation? Won’t people be hesitant to volunteer to testify during a lengthy trial if it means a security guard literally watching them sleep and shower for months.
I meant not that the witness would be obligated to accept that, but that a company would be interested to offer to pay for various measures to preserve their health, sanity and all that.
But the claim was that he committed suicide, say you’re concerned about the company killing you so you accept their security. Couldn’t the security then just have a good reason to be in your house to “find the body” when you “slip in the shower”
Step 1: Short company stocks Step 2: kill witness against the company Step 3: profit.
Just one example of that being a terrible idea