Paul Bynum: Still Thinking of Him Thirty Years Later

I had been at the State Bar of California as an attorney for just under two years when one morning, I heard that an investigator, whom I didn't know very well, but liked very much, had committed suicide, leaving behind a wife and a young child. It's only in recent years that you can look up his name and find some information on him, and what happened to him. Before he was an investigator at the State Bar, he had been a Detective at the Hermosa Beach Police Department. He had worked on high profile cases, and, as I understand it, after he was separated from the Department, he worked with a lawyer on the infamous McMartin cases. He was scheduled to testify before the jury in the case at the time he allegedly committed suicide. There were people who believed it wasn't suicide but murder, related to the high profile case. I have been paring down, slowly but surely of late, and I ran across this journal entry I wrote at the time of his death.

December 10, 1987

If I had known Paul Bynum better, other than as a friendly face whom I passed in the hall or rode up in the elevator with in the mornings or afternoon, I think I would have been emotionally incapacitated when I learned last night he killed himself.

He sort of stood out, because he looked so natural in his usually white shirt, rolled up sleeves and no matter what time of the day it was, early morning or late afternoon, his tie would usually be a little loosened.

He looked like a man hard at work, in the middle of some investigatory revelation. He was a former cop, like half of the investigators in our office.

Something was so horrible in his life, something which none of us yet knew, that he felt he had to shoot himself, leaving behind a wife and an 18 month old child.

I wanted to know if he left a note, something, some indication of what it was so compelling him to his death, or impelling him.

It won't be any less of a waste if I know, but at least maybe knowing why makes it all seem a little less random.

People die all the time, and there was something odd about the sense tonight, as I was driving home, that he had been here yesterday, all day.  Then today it was as as if he never existed.

Fear, sympathy, confusion, questioning, anger, sadness.  You feel all of these.

God, he felt so forsaken and he couldn't hang on. I'm tempted to ask where You were.  You might say to me, "It was his choice. Paul had the choice to keep the gift or throw it away." But, Lord, what if his mind was clouded? I have known a clouded mind. One of the inexplicable things.  We ask "why?". We cannot accept it  And we try to wait patiently for explanation and rescue.

Paul is no different from the rest of us, and that is what is alarming. For now, we are left with, "Why did that man kill himself?" and pray that God will take care of him, that he was not forsaken, whatever the appearance.

He is not here anymore.  All the cases that he handled, all the obsessing that he did over those things, for naught.

"What is truly important," said the Little Prince, "is invisible to the eye."  I hope that Paul had a glimpse of the truly important. I hope that I avoid in my life the drastic choice that Paul made.

Lord, I suspect that Paul went through a great deal of agony.  Look upon that agony as something which rendered him  unable to think clearly. He fell.  The Cross he bore was too heavy. Your Son died for him, for Paul who could not find you in his moment of despair. Protect him now, all things are possible with You.

I pray I do not forget Paul Bynum.