Gary Webb: The Reporter Who Proved CIA-Crack and Was Suicided With Two Bullets to the Head
He broke the biggest story of the 1990s. The press destroyed him for it. He died with two .38 caliber rounds to the back of the head. Officially, suicide.
In August 1996, Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News published Dark Alliance - a three-part series proving the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras had funneled cocaine into Los Angeles, fueling the crack epidemic that devastated Black America in the 1980s.
Webb didn't speculate. He named names. He produced DEA documents, court testimony, traffickers on the record. The trail led directly to Langley.
The reaction was immediate. The Washington Post, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times ran coordinated hit pieces - not on the CIA, but on Webb. His paper folded under pressure and disavowed him. He was reassigned to a county bureau covering city council meetings. His marriage collapsed.
In 2014 the CIA's own Inspector General quietly admitted Webb had been right. Volume II of the IG report confirmed the agency had known about and protected Contra drug trafficking for years.
By then Webb was dead. On December 10, 2004, he was found in his home with two gunshot wounds to the head. The Sacramento County coroner ruled it a suicide.
Two. Shots. To. The. Head.