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- <text id=89TT1974>
- <title>
- July 31, 1989: American Notes:Investigations
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- July 31, 1989 Doctors And Patients
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 21
- American Notes
- INVESTIGATIONS
- It May Have Been Suicide
- </hdr><body>
- <p> After three months, the Navy is reviewing its study of the
- U.S.S. Iowa gun-turret explosion that killed 47 men. According
- to one report, investigators believe that the most plausible
- explanation for the explosion is suicide. They conclude but
- cannot prove that Clayton Hartwig, 25, who died in the blast,
- set off the inferno with an electronic detonator. The evidence:
- Iowa sailor David Smith claimed that Hartwig had talked about
- sinking the ship and had shown him a timer.
- </p>
- <p> Early in the investigation, Kendall Truitt, 21, a friend of
- Hartwig's and beneficiary of Hartwig's $100,000 life-insurance
- policy, was under suspicion as an accessory in a bizarre
- murder-suicide plot stemming from a homosexual relationship.
- Truitt denied the allegations, and the Navy quietly apologized
- to him.
- </p>
- <p> Still, the suicide theory raises questions. Iowa Gunner's
- Mate Second Class John Mullahy informed officials that moments
- before the explosion he was on the phone to the turret when he
- heard a voice say, "We have a problem in here. We're not ready
- yet." Whether that problem was Hartwig or something else
- altogether remains unknown.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-