It does if he committed suicide, and made the necessary arrangements before hand.
But if he can give his heirs access to his secret slush funds, why can’t he do that when he’s still alive?
We’ve got a couple of theories floating around here, but they’re all incompatible.
- Ken Lay died of a heart attack.
- Ken Lay was murdered by his heirs to get his fortune.
- Ken Lay was murdered by Haliburton because he knew too much.
- Ken Lay committed suicide
- Ken Lay faked his death and is now headed for Guatemala with a new face and a suitcase full of cash.
2 doesn’t make sense, he didn’t have a huge fortune anymore. 3 doesn’t make sense, why wait till now? 4 only makes sense if he killed himself so his heirs could get the life insurance money. 5 assumes that a suitcase full of cash will get you very far. It’s not easy to transfer funds around the globe when you’re a fugitive. It’s not easy to find a crooked plastic surgeon who’ll STAY BOUGHT.
Y’know, sometimes people just die. Sometimes a crazed lone nut takes a rifle into a book depository and blows someone’s head off for no particular reason that makes sense. Sometimes people lose fortunes through sheer stupidity and incompetance. Sometimes the simple answers are wrong, but most times they’re right.
I sure hope he didn’t, because that wouldn’t work. As the old joke goes, the difference between lawyers and ticks is that ticks drop off of you when you’re dead. Assuming there’s actually anything left, his death won’t have any effect on the civil suits. DeLay’s estate is still liable, and he left behind plenty of testimony to support a judgment when he testified in his criminal trial.
Heh…um, make that “Lay’s” estate. 
A vast majority of so-called correspondences in the WORLD are actually coincidences. Only conspiracy nuts and religious fanatics (whether traditional or New Age) think otherwise.
Okay, one caveat I have to add here: his death means that punitive damages can’t be sought, only compensatory damages, but I don’t think that’'ll be a big enough margin to justify offing himself. Either way his estate was/is going to be bankrupted.
I thought the number one theory about Ken Lay being killed was that he had information that would implicate Dubya himself or other other Pubbie party minions. I agree that Dubya and Party would have no scruples to convince them from committing such an act, but in the total absence of proof we have only our suspicions. However, pooh-poohing the notion that Lay would be killed because of this or that minor consideration is silly – there are all sorts of reasons we don’t know which might dictate when and how it would be done, if it were done at all.
WOOOOOW!!!
What the hell doesn’t make sense? The guy was headed for jail, he had a lot of partners in crime that will never be caught because he didn’t sell them out (called friends), and so he faked his death and is now headed for Guatemala.
Are you not capable of imagining that a guy headed for jail would want to do this? Forget his fortunes or anything like that, when it comes down to it he was headed for jail and had everything to gain from this move.
What doesn’t make sense to me is that this doesn’t make sense to you. Just what the hell is your agenda on this site?
Congrats. Now all you have to do is prove that he could’ve done it and that he actually did it. But since you’ve established he might have wanted to do it, you’re practically home free.
Read the masthead. It’s true that he might have wanted to get out of going to jail, but that doesn’t mean every single theory that ties into that makes sense.
Yar!
In reality, Disney was cremated and his ashes interred at Forest Lawn. A pity, really. If he’d been frozen it would have given a whole new meaning to Disney On Ice.
Yeah, another thing that doesn’t make sense is that a guy who was hiring body guards to protect his life, commits suicide 2 days later, the day before he’s set to testify. But oh well, leave to the Dopers to recognize pure coincidence when it slaps them on the forehead.
I mean DAMN, all I want is to see a body, before any evidence of foul play is cremated.
Rule of thumb: If you find yourself putting air quotes around the word “coincidence” more than twice in the same breath, you may be a conspiracy nut.
Now, now, don’t you know it’s wildly paranoid to think that a man who hires bodyguards might fear for his life ?
In general, the people on this board don’t find “it can’t be a coincidence” very persuasive. I don’t know why you’re having trouble processing this.
Got it. Many nuances to learn between GD and the Pit. Still learning. The curve just seems to be higher for me.
Neither is “it just doesn’t make sense”.
If he committed suicide.
Which he likely didn’t.
Sometimes people just drop dead. You have no evidence that anything besdies a heart attack happened at all besides a vague suspicion that this death was convienient to somebody somewhere.
And no, unless you’re the county coroner for Aspen Colorado or an immediate relation to Lay, you don’t get to see the body. Thems the breaks.
So, I think we’ve established that there is no such thing as death by natural causes, ever, correct?
But that’s my point. The only reason you think it’s possible is because it fits with your impression of a man you’ve never met and likely know little to nothing about. Which, frankly, isn’t much a reason for me to waste time considering it.
It seems that you’re working pretty hard to fit the world into your preconceived notions. Why not consider the fact that Bush might not be responsible for everything bad in the world? This board is dedicated to fighting ignorance, after all.