More on Death of Andrew Veal

Andrew Veal is the young man found dead of a shotgun blast to the head at "Ground Zero" in New York. Apparently, the man was distraught over the election and "personal issues", so he drove up from Georgia, scaled a 15-foot fence while holding a shotgun and undetected by the (admittedly outsourced) security firm, and then killed himself.

At first, the reports all said there was no suicide note, which is one of the things I found odd. Later reports said there was, in fact, a suicide note on his body that mentioned the election and that his girlfriend was too good for him. Apparently, he had a girlfriend in Seattle but also had feelings for a girl there in Athens. The local media called that his "double life." Whatever.

Then, it turns out that, quite helpfully, he left a three page, detailed diary of his trip from Georgia that explains everything. Unfortunately they've only released a couple of paragraphs. You can read the story here.

These excerpts, if they are true, sure makes it look like he did, indeed, drive himself up to New York after purchasing a shotgun and 60 rounds of ammunition. Umm....60? All right, I admit it, I'm not gun owner. Maybe they don't sell boxes of shotgun shells in smaller than 60 per box, but that seems like an AWFUL lot of ammo for suicide.

Here's the excerpt:

"I got 60 rounds of shells and I'm driving toward the beach or Jersey. I'm still in Walmart . . . I just bought a Smith and Wesson 12-gauge action shotgun. I can't wait to fire it. I can contact Trent, but if I do I won't tell him about the shotgun because he'll get nervous."

Well, yeah, I guess Trent would get nervous. But he "can't wait to fire it"? I don't know. I will certainly admit that the details in this note (there are others about the two women, etc.) certainly make it seem genuine. But in the excerpts he mentions neither suicide (just shooting, and 60 shells worth, at that) nor politics. While it is certainly possible his suicide was for purely personal reasons, it seems unlikely that he'd travel all the way to NYC and ground zero for that purpose if there were not political overtones. The link above, to add to the confusion, makes no mention of the note allegedly found on the body that DOES mention Bush's election win.

I don't expect to get much more information on this. I'll keep looking though.