Hanged worker told friend of plan

FRANKFORT, Ky. – An eastern Kentucky census worker found naked, bound and hanging from a tree had told a friend he intended to kill himself and that he had chosen the time, place and method to do it, police records show.

Those records about the death of Bill Sparkman were released Friday.

Sparkman, 51, was found with a rope around his neck near a rural cemetery in September with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest. It triggered an investigation that ultimately determined he had committed suicide.

The records show that Sparkman’s friend, Lowell Adams, who had worked for Sparkman as a part-time security guard since 2007, told investigators that the federal employee wanted his suicide to look like a murder.

“In reality Bill spoke with me several times about killing himself and, on the Saturday before his death he told me he was going to kill himself on the next Wednesday,” Adams wrote in a statement.

Adams said Sparkman once had lymphoma and preferred to kill himself rather than die from cancer.