Another Foreclosure Suicide in Washington State

Phyllis Walsh killed herself two days before her eviction in South Seattle in 2013. Brenda Fasoli

Sponsored Port Townsend Film Festival Stream 24/7 - Watch 75 curated films with filmmaker interviews & special events. Support local arts!

This happened on Sunday, reports the Wenatchee World:

A major police operation Sunday to get a 66-year-old Wenatchee man to vacate his home that had been foreclosed upon and sold ended in the man’s death by apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police responded to the Marilyn Street home at 1 p.m. after the home’s new owners reported they were at the home and heard two gunshots inside while they were outside trying to make contact with the man.

The new owners of the home are quoted calling what happenedThere isn't any more information in the article about the man or the circumstances of his foreclosure.

In 2013, I wrote about a foreclosure suicide in South Seattle. 65-year-old Phyllis Walsh lived alone. She was deeply beloved by her neighbors. She would bring books from the library to the daughter of the family across the street. Her niece said that after her husband died, Walsh had repeatedly sought relief from the banks, who'd "passed her from specialist to specialist."

On July 30, 2013, Walsh fired a single gunshot into her head. She left a dryly-written note on the front lawn warning that the "foreclosure vultures" were coming. At the time, the real estate agent who bought the home said he couldn't get her out of his head. "We are the foreclosure vultures, in a sense," he told me.

Last year, a Center for Disease Control study found that "suicides spurred by severe housing stress—evictions and foreclosures—doubled between 2005 and 2010."

UPDATE: The Crisis Clinic offers a 24-hour suicide prevention hotline for King County residents: 1-866-4CRISIS (1-866-427-4747) or 206-461-3222.