Not good news: Body found at Mike Webb's (former KIRO-AM host) home

[Missy Vixen]

I was just reading the Seattle Times before turning in for the evening. Mr. Webb evidently disappeared in April.

Julie

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2003766962&zsection_id=2002111777&slug=webwebb28m&date=20070628

>Body found at home of missing ex-radio host

By Seattle Times staff

A severely decomposed body was found this afternoon at the rental home of former KIRO radio talk-show host Mike Webb, who has been missing since April.

A property manager found the body shortly before 3 p.m. at the home in the 2500 block of 3rd Avenue W., according to police. The body was so decomposed that investigators were unable to immediately determine its sex, age or race, said Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel. Police wouldn't say where in the home the body was found.

Webb worked for KIRO-AM (710) radio for 10 years and hosted a liberal late-night show before he was fired weeks after being charged with insurance fraud in December 2005 in a case that stemmed from a traffic accident. In February, he was found guilty and sentenced to 240 hours of community service.<

[Ken Burch]

1. Shit. That DEFINITELY sounds bad.

Best we not say much more until we know stuff for sure.

[SeattleGirl]

2. Saw this posted in the Washington forum earlier today, then watched

the news.

I listened to Mike almost every night. He reminds me a lot of Mike Malloy. Neither pull any punches.

[Wetzelbill]

3. OMG, I think I called into his show once on 9/11

Wow, this doesn't sound good at all.

[Cooley Hurd]

4. Jesus, I know this is from Wikipedia, but this sounds like possible foul play:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Webb

<snip>
On June 28, 2007, Seattle Police reported that a decomposed body had been found in Webb's rental home. The body was found June 28th by the property manager, in the Seattle house that Mike Webb had rented since July of 1992. The body was in a crawl space adjacent to the basement under suspicious circumstances. It was covered with a blue plastic tarp and storage boxes were placed on top of it to hide it.
</snip>
:(

[alphafemale]

13. I'd guess. People don't normally crawl up under houses to die.

I've seen animals do that. People? Not so much.

Sad thing is, with this much time passed, that most evidence will have probably been lost.

[Clark2008]

17. Not really.

You'd be surprised how much they can determine.

As the reknowned forensic anthropologist Dr. William Bass always told me, "Flesh forgets, but bone remembers."

It's only been, at most, two months. The body would still have enough sinew on it - even with decomp, hot weather and bug infestation - to get DNA samples in case he was poisoned. Or, if he was killed with a bullet or blunt-force trauma, that would show up in the bones. Also, a bullet wound would contain MORE decomp since that would be the first place the bugs would enter.

Sorry to be so morbid. I was a police/crime reporter for years. There is a lot they can determine. In fact, a body could be dead years and years and they'd still be able to determine a significant amount. It depends on the talents of the forensic medical staff.

[alphafemale]

18. The body will have evidence.

Sure.

But the scene will have been compromised.

People have been traipsing in and out for a couple of months.

No problem on the gory details. I find that sort of stuff fascinating.

Love me some Cold Case and CSI.
:hi:

[Ken Burch]

21. And they almost never put themselves in plastic bags when they kill themselves

(although there should be residues from the decomp on the inside of the bag that might tell them something).

[Ken Burch]

22. Actually, that should have been

They almost never cover themselves with a plastic tarp and then put boxes on top of the tarp after putting themselves under it(try it yourself sometime and see if you could manage that) .
I'm not meaning to make light of any of this, but I think this does show the absurdity of any remaining claims that this was suicide.

And really, did the guy deserve to lose his job over a trivial insurance fraud thing? I mean, he got a fine and community service for this. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of his work as a radio personality. I'm thinking KIRO got scared of how liberal he was and would have taken any chance they had to fire him. Probably would have canned him for not contributing to the coffee fund in the break room if this hadn't worked out.

A good man destroyed for a trivial mistake. And now it looks like somebody wasted him. This is how this country rewards people who actually use the First Amendment as intended.

[Debau2005]

5. Question

If he has been missing since April, did no one check his home? Sorry if I missed something in the story, it is still early....

[babylonsister]

6. My major question also. Maybe no one checked the crawl space, which

would seem like pretty shoddy detective work.

[Richard Steele]

7. The thread about this in LBN has a link....

...where it's stated that the house had been searched
more than once since his disappearance.

Apparently this unidentified body was pretty well hidden,
wherever it was.

[Debau2005]

8. Thanks

The link I read first didn't mention the crawl space. It made it sound like he was out in the open. Although, if the house had been checked more then once, I still don't understand why he wasn't found.

[geomon666]

19. Nobody noticed the smell?

Pretty hard to cover up that smell. You can't even do it with concrete.

[Richard Steele]

20. Depending on conditions, there may not have been any smell.

I don't want to get into too much speculation,
since I really have ZERO information right now...
but it's a fact that every now and then a body
will dry out and "mummify" naturally. Not nearly
as much smell involved with that.

An elderly man was just found in February who had been
dead over a year- he had mummified sitting in front of
his TV, and no one noticed anything:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02182007/news/regionalnews/body_stays_tuned_in_for_a_year_regionalnews_frank_ryan_and__lukas_i__alpert.htm

[TwilightGardener]

9. OK, not to offend, but nobody SMELLED this? Considering it was not in a rural

setting, but in an urban/suburban area? Nobody walked around the house and said, "What's that godawful smell?" When I drive to work on rural highways, I sometimes have to roll the windows up because the road-kill stench fills up my car as I'm going sixty. Shoddy detective work, too, not to look in the crawl space (what could be more obvious?).

[paulk]

10. Not always -

Last year someone I knew (friend of a friend, really) died (of natural causes) in an apartment building - it was 10 days before the body was found. No one on the floors above or below noticed anything. I know this directly, because the person who found the body was the apartment manager, who lived directly underneath, and he's also someone I know.

Strange things happen.

[TwilightGardener]

12. Wow--I can smell a 3-day-dead bird (kitty gift) from across the yard--

hard to believe!

[Breeze54]

11. Bizarre that nobody checked under the house in all this time!!

:wtf: What kind of search is that?? :shrug:

And who the hell covered up the body?? I'm guessing that he didn't!

[KharmaTrain]

14. Sadly Many People Live Very Alone These Days

I have a friend who has no immediate family...he was an only child and his parents have long since passed on. His greatest fear is that there'd be nobody there in case something happened to him. Just recently a friend of his was found, decompossed, in an apartment in the building my friend lived in...he had an existing heart condition, but no one thought it was important to check up on him...until no one saw or heard from him for several days.

I really feel for the fall Mike probably has taken. I don't know the specifics on his firing and the insurance case, thus I can't comment there...but I can relate to losing a radio podium and the emotional angst that surely created. He must have been seeing all types of outrages and was frustrated he had no outlet to express that frustration.

The radio economy is in shambles now...especially the job market. Being a fired, liberal talk show host is not in high demand in today's hate radio market. He must have spent many a lonely night thinking about the whatifs and whys.

Here's hoping there's good news coming here...

[Breeze54]

15. That may be but the police did a search TWICE!!!

And missed this body under the house.

I don't think they searched hard enough.

[Missy Vixen]

16. This is such a sad story all around

We listened to Mike Webb for years as well.

Julie

[Ken Burch]

23. Confirmation that body WAS Webb, cause of death was multiple stab wounds

http://tinyurl.com/3aclza

As I see it, if KIRO hadn't fired him, Mike Webb would be alive today.

[Tulum_Moon]

24. Why is that?

Do you mean he would have been at work while his place was robbed or something? Just asking. :hi:

[Ken Burch]

25. It's partly to do with the item in the story about the man he was hanging out with

after he'd been firing. Also, I have the sense that Webb's like in general spiraled down out of control and may have brought him into contact with people who were dangerous.

It's possible he might have died anyway, I suppose, but the story does make me wonder.

[Laurier]

26. Very sad news.

:(