The coroner in Charleston, South Carolina has announced the results of the investigation into the sudden death of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who was found dead in March.
Barnett’s body was discovered in his truck after he failed to show up for his second day of depositions in a lawsuit against the aerospace manufacturer.
After Barnett failed to arrive for the proceedings, his lawyers called for a wellness check.
He was found with a gunshot wound to the head in the parking lot of his hotel, according to authorities.
Charleston investigators have now released their findings in the mysterious death of Barnett
He had a pistol in his right hand, and investigators later confirmed gunshot residue on his hand.
They found a single shell casing in the truck and a suicide note on his passenger seat.
“All findings were consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” the report from Charleston County Coroner Bobbi Jo O’Neal reads.
The gunshot wound is listed as Barnett’s official cause of death.
The manner “is best deemed, ‘Suicide’,” the coroner concludes in the report.
Additionally, police said he was locked inside his vehicle alone when they found him, along with the key fob.
They found no signs of unusual travel patterns or communications in his phone records.
Hotel surveillance video showed him leaving the hotel by himself before he reversed into a parking spot a few minutes later.
No one was seen coming or going from the vehicle until the grim discovery the following morning.
Police said records showed Barnett bought the handgun legally in 2000.
They also found his fingerprints on the notebook containing his suicide letter.
He was suing Boeing, claiming that he had been retaliated against, harassed, and spied on by the company.
One of Barnett’s lawyers, Robert Turkewitz, previously claimed that he didn’t think the aerospace giant had played a role in his client’s death.
However, he added that “it just didn’t make sense” that he would kill himself.
Additionally, an eerie message emerged after his death in which Barnett insisted before he died that he would not kill himself.
A close family friend of Barnett disclosed the haunting premonition he made before his untimely death.
In a shocking revelation to ABC News, Jennifer, whose mother has been lifelong friends with Barnett’s mom, shared that Barnett had expressed concerns about being “suicided.”
He feared that he would be murdered in a scenario falsely framed as suicide.
Jennifer recounted her conversations with Barnett during an interview with ABC.
She emphasized his love for life and dismissed any possibility that he could have taken his own life.
“He wasn’t concerned about safety because I asked him,” she said.
“I said, ‘Aren’t you scared?’
“And his voice and the way he would talk, ‘no, I ain’t scared.’
“He said, ‘But if anything happens to me, it’s NOT suicide.’
“I know that he did not commit suicide.
“There’s no way. He loved life too much.
“He loved his family too much.
“He loved his brothers too much to put them through what they’re going through right now.”
WATCH:
John Barnett : 'If anything happens, it's not suicide':
Boeing whistleblower's prediction to family before death pic.twitter.com/KVmuXf5Lwo
— Bad Kitty Unleashed 🦁💪🏻 (@pepesgrandma) March 15, 2024
Barnett worked for Boeing for over three decades before retiring in 2017 as a quality-control engineer.
In 2019, he told the BBC that Boeing would rush to get its 787 Dreamliner jets off the production line, compromising safety.
This past January, Barnett told TMZ that he was concerned that Boeing was returning its 737 Max 9 jets to the sky too quickly, after the incident in which an Alaska Airlines jet’s door panel blew off mid-flight.
Unrelated to Barnett’s lawsuit, Boeing’s CEO Dave Calhoun announced he would be resigning by the end of the year amid the company’s ongoing struggles.
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