Original article no longer available
Charleston Gazette-Mail
By Gary Harki, Staff writer
State Police report describes Gonzales’ unhappiness before commiting suicide
A report released Friday by the West Virginia State Police details the last days of Marlo Gonzales, the state trooper who killed himself in his cruiser on July 17.
The report describes a man in emotional turmoil, one who had stopped taking his depression medication and who had suicidal thoughts at least a year before his death.
It also describes a man unhappy with his job with the State Police and with his marriage.
Gonzales, a 13-year veteran of the force, filed seven requests for leave with the State Police in two years, according to the document. He twice called another State Police officer the day he committed suicide to ask about the State Police retirement system.
Gonzales, 39, talked to his father-in-law, Frank McCallister, at McCallister’s office the day he died.
“I can’t go on the way that I’m going on,” Gonzales told McCallister, according to the report.
Gonzales told his father-in-law that he had tried to take a leave of absence but had been denied, according to the report. He also expressed concern that his temporary assignment to South Charleston would be extended.
“Cpl. Gonzales indicated he was being treated unfairly by the State Police and was unsatisfied with his current duty assignment,” according to the report. “Mr. McCallister’s statements reflected his beliefs Cpl. Gonzales was not treated fairly by the State Police.”
Gonzales and McCallister prayed together, according to the report, and McCallister quoted a biblical psalm to Gonzales.
McCallister and Angel Gonzales, the trooper’s wife, told police that Gonzales had stopped taking Zoloft, which had been prescribed for him to fight depression, four days before he shot himself.
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Trooper died on day porn investigation was started — (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
Gary A. Harki
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia State Police officer’s apparent suicide came on the same day an investigation began into whether he had child pornography, according to a report released Monday.Cpl. Vincent Gall, an officer with the department for more than 10 years, was found dead of a gunshot wound on the back porch of his home on March 12. State officials had said he shot himself after he was told about an internal investigation into his conduct.After his death, investigators found images on Gall’s computer at the State Police detachment at Romney, but those images did not meet the criminal definition of child pornography, said Joe Thornton, spokesman for the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety.Nonetheless, the images were not allowed on a trooper’s work computer, Thornton said.
“This would have been dealt with as a personnel matter,” he said.Thornton said he was not sure if the official report was completed into Gall’s suicide.”Basically, what it is going to find is if he did commit suicide or not, and I think it’s pretty much determined that he did,” he said. Police also took possession of Gall’s personal computer equipment after his suicide, according to the report.Gall had CDs, DVDs and floppy disks containing pornography as far back as 1998, according to the report.Thornton said he has not seen the images but has been told the pornography found on both the work and home computers was of males and females whose ages couldn’t be determined. There were a lot of images, most if not all of which had been digitally altered, he said. – See more at: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/News/Policingthepolice/201011090834#sthash.WTy3bgQm.dpuf