Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 05:51:45 :
San Francisco Examiner
27 July 1964
Leaper’s Note to Mom
‘I Lived a Lie…’
A 23-year-old graduate of Claremont Men’s College in Southern California left an enigmatic note for his mother yesterday morning, then drove to the Golden Gate Bridge and leaped off.
The body of Richard Heron Gillespie was spotted by searching officers on the rocks 85 feet below the north end of the bridge minutes after Mrs. Richardson Gillespie, 55, of 899 Pine St., first notified police.
Mrs. Gillespie said her son arose early and told her he was going to get gas for his car, then left the house at about 6 a.m.
Curious, she wandered into his room and found a letter in his handwriting.
She called police.
The letter said: “Dear Mom, everything I have done has been a lie. Everything Dad did was a lie. I must do away with myself before I cause further harm to people.”
Police records show she notified them at 6:05 am. They dispatched a car to the Gillespie home and by 6:09 a.m. were able to broadcast a description of the car to the California Highway Patrol.
Officers went to the spot near the north tower where the car had been found abandoned, its lights still burning and the key in the ignition. They saw Gillespie’s body on the rocks below.
A Coast Guard Reserve officer said Gillespie attended the first day of a two-day training session Saturday. He had completed six months active duty in the spring.
Marin County Coroner Frank Keaton said Mrs. Gillespie could shed no light on the meaning of the letter.
Police said this was the 266th known suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge.
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San Francisco Chronicle
27 July 1964
GILLISPIE (sic) – In Marin County, July 26, 1964, Richard Heron Gillispie, Jr., beloved son of Mrs. Richard Heron Gillispie, nephew of Mr. Clarence Tantau, cousin of Mr. Hart H. Tantau. A native of California, aged 23 years.
Private funeral services will be held 10 a.m. Wednesday, July 29, at N. Gray & Co., Divisadero St. at Post.
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San Francisco Chronicle
29 July 1964
Page 1
Young Man’s Race To Kill Himself
Richard H. Gillespie Jr. was a young man in a hurry to die yesterday morning and he got a good start.
The authorities were only minutes behind, but they caught up with him only at the end – the rocks 200 feet below the Golden Gate Bridge.
“Dear Mother,” the despondent 24-year-old wrote. “Everything I have done has been a lie. Everything Dad did was a lie. I must do away with myself before I cause further harm to people.”
His father, Richard H. Gillespie Sr., was a General Motors Corporation executive who died seven years ago, authorities said.
He left the handwritten note on his bedroom dresser and left his plush apartment at 899 Pine street on Nob Hill. It was a minute or two before 6 a.m. and he started his race.
His mother, 55-year-old Audrey Gillespie, was awake – she was supposed to get him up by 6 a.m. in time for a Coast Guard Reserve meeting.
She hurriedly dressed, called to him at the door as he left – but he kept going.
Mrs. Gillespie, puzzled at his abrupt departure, looked in her son’s room and found the note.
She telephoned San Francisco police at 6:02 a.m.
They issued a “possible 801” (suicide) bulletin, and the California Highway Patrol monitored it, and repeated the message.
At 6:09 a.m. cruising Highway Patrolman James Heinig received the message, and started looking for the young man’s tan Volkswagen.
He found it four minutes late – lights burning, ignition off – 50 feet north of the bridge’s north tower.
Gillespie was the 266th known suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge.
He had not been feeling well recently and had been worried about his health, Mrs. Gillespie said.
The young man, a graduate of Claremont Men’s College in Southern California, was discharged only five days ago from the Coast Guard. He was undecided whether to get a job or go back to school, she said.
There was one other possible factor.
The young man, she told police, was very interested in the story of Leonard Jenkins, the aircraft mechanic who disappeared with his 4-year-old son, wrote a suicide note, and left his car near the Golden Gate Bridge.
That story appeared yesterday to be a hoax as authorities speculated that Jenkins was in Mexico or Arizona.
But Gillespie won his race, and authorities later recovered his body from the jagged rocks.
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