Suicide note: ''D.C. Madam' said she didn't want prison
TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) - May 5, 2008 Deborah Jeane Palfrey, convicted last month of running an elite
Washington prostitution ring, wrote to her mother that she could
not "live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what you and I have
come to regard as this 'modern day lynching,' only to come out of
prison in my late '50s a broken, penniless and very much alone
woman."
The notes were released by police Monday.
Palfrey, 52, hanged herself with a nylon rope Thursday in a shed
outside her mother's mobile home in the Florida Gulf Coast
community of Tarpon Springs, northwest of Tampa. Her mother,
76-year-old Blanche Palfrey, discovered the body.
Deborah Palfrey was convicted of running a prostitution service
that catered to members of Washington's political elite, including
Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican. She denied her escort
service engaged in prostitution, saying that if any of the women
engaged in sex acts for money, they did so without her knowledge.
She was free while she awaited sentencing on July 24 and had
been staying with her mother.
Her suicide appeared to have been planned for days. The note to
her mother was dated April 25, nearly a week before she killed
herself. Police said the notes were found on a night stand in the
bedroom where she'd been staying. One of the notes said, "Do not
revive. Do not feed under any circumstances."
In the note to her younger sister, Bobbie, Palfrey expressed her
love and told her to "be strong for mom."
"Also, you must comprehend that there was no other way out,
i.e., 'exit strategy,' other than the one I have chosen here," she
wrote. "Know I am at peace, with complete certainty, I believe Dad
is standing watch - prepared to guide me into the light."
Also Monday, police announced that the medical examiner's office
officially ruled Palfrey's death a suicide by hanging. A toxicology
report is pending.
Her death last week had sparked widespread Internet chatter
among those who speculated that someone killed her to keep her from
identifying more prominent clients of the escort service.
"Tarpon Springs Police Department detectives, after following
up on several investigative avenues have not discovered any new
evidence which would indicate anything other then a suicide by
hanging in this case," spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Young said.
Palfrey's mother and sister identified her handwriting in the
suicide notes, Young said.
A federal jury convicted Palfrey on April 15 of money
laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering.
Prosecutors said she ran the prostitution service for 13 years. The
trial concluded without revealing many new details about the
service or its clients. Vitter was among possible witnesses but did
not take the stand.
Palfrey had vowed that she would not go to prison, even telling
a Washington writer that she would commit suicide first.