ATLANTA (AP) — Authorities say the death of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employee whose body was found in a river in Atlanta has been ruled a suicide.
Fulton County chief medical examiner Dr. Jan Gorniak said Tuesday that Timothy Cunningham’s death was a suicide by drowning. Gorniak said there also was evidence that the 35-year-old epidemiologist had used marijuana but that that was not a contributing factor in his death.
Cunningham worked at the Atlanta-based CDC. He disappeared Feb. 12. His family reported him missing on Feb. 16 after going to his home and finding his belongings and vehicle there.
Authorities said fishermen found Cunningham’s body April 3 partially submerged in water and mud on the west bank of the Chattahoochee River.
Isn’t there an entire genre of scifi and conspiracy theory involving accidental deaths or suicides of microbiologists, virologists, biochemists and epidemiologists who vanish because they know too much. Probably the biggest among these was the David Kelly saga. I never got that far as I was turned off to the whole mess after reading the Ken Alibek story in the New Yorker a couple decades ago, but I understand this remains a thing.