TEXAS DEPUTY’S SHOOTING DEATH RULED SUICIDE

Travis County Sheriff’s Sergeant Craig Hutchinson was first believed to have been killed by robbers because he made a call on his radio to report two people were running out of the backyard of his Round Rock home

By Philip Jankowski

Austin American Statesman
August 13, 2016

A justice of the peace determined Friday that Travis County sheriff's Sgt. Craig Hutchinson committed suicide, shattering the presumption that the respected veteran of more than three decades had died while doing his job.

And while investigators turned up evidence that Hutchinson in recent years had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression and had showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, they also pored through thousands of pages of financial documents that showed he had money troubles that stretch back to 2011. Hutchinson had been prescribed anti-depression medication, but the medicine wasn't in his bloodstream at the time of his death, detectives said.

Police emphasized that their investigation isn't over. Hutchinson's widow, Victoria McKinney-Hutchinson, disagreed with Justice of the Peace Bill Gravell's ruling that it was a suicide.

"Craig was not a spontaneous person, an angry man or unpredictable man. ... I do believe that my husband was killed, and those who killed him have not been caught," McKinney-Hutchinson said in a statement to a reporter at KXAN-News, her first public comments since her husband died July 25.

Minutes before his death, Hutchinson had reported that he was investigating prowlers in his yard, triggering a massive investigation that spread across numerous law enforcement agencies involving hundreds of staff hours and a search for presumed cop killers. But despite the suicide determination, Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton said that Hutchinson should be remembered as a well-respected veteran who helped train a generation of deputies, including Hamilton.

"Hutch, evidently, he had some demons that we didn't know about," Hamilton said. "Regardless of this one act he did, he was a great man."

According to a 2015 study on workplace suicides published by the National Institutes of Health, the rate of suicide among public safety workers was 3.5 times greater than the overall rate for U.S. workers, and 84 percent of these suicides involved firearms.

The researchers found that public safety workers were reluctant to seek counseling for stress, anxiety and depression because of the fear of being stigmatized.

At a Friday afternoon press conference, investigators couldn't say how ruling Hutchinson's death as a suicide will affect the compensation for his family. However, an American-Statesman investigation determined that, at a very minimum, it will deprive the surviving members of his family at least $890,000 from a combination of life insurance money and federal and state programs for law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

Hutchinson was found shot on his property and later died at a Round Rock hospital.

His death triggered a massive multiagency investigation that canvassed more than 200 homes in Hutchinson's neighborhood. With no suspects in custody, local officials and organizations pooled together more than $50,000 for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible for his death.

Tips poured in, but no suspects were identified.

On Aug. 2, Hutchinson was given a hero's funeral. Hundreds of law enforcement officers traveled from near and far to pay tribute to the well-liked 32-year veteran of the sheriff's office who was less than two months from retirement. He was remembered as a stickler for the rules who was eager to use his humor to teach a burgeoning deputy a lesson about policing.

Hamilton lovingly remembered Hutchinson as his own training officer.

The day after the funeral, Hamilton stood silent behind Round Rock Police Chief Allen Banks as the chief revealed that Hutchinson had been killed by his own weapon. At that time, Banks said investigators hadn't ruled out that Hutchinson's death was "self-inflicted."

"Two weeks before this occurred, Sgt. Hutchinson was in my office talking about how excited he was for retirement and moving to a ranch," Hamilton said Friday. "Two weeks later he chose to take his life, and I am wondering myself, 'Should I have known this was going to happen?'"

Hamilton said he has been reading literature about suicide since Hutchinson's death and is pursuing many threads on how his office should address the issue at the sheriff's office.

"We are going to address that at Travis County," he said. "I don't know what we are going to do. But we are going to address that issue."

In total, investigators uncovered six instances since July 2011 when foreclosure paperwork was filed on the Hutchinson home. The most recent foreclosure proceeding was filed in July, with the house set to be auctioned Aug. 2. Detectives also found that his vehicle was repossessed in March 2015 and June 2016.

Detectives collected more than 150 pieces of evidence, had 45 samples of DNA tested, investigated 125 tips and made six unrelated arrests during the dragnet.

An autopsy determined Hutchinson was killed by a single gunshot fired from his duty handgun. The bullet went through Hutchinson's left palm and then went into the left side of his head, Gravell said.

Hutchinson's basic life insurance policywill pay out $50,000 guaranteed no matter the circumstances of his death, county officials said. It would have doubled to $100,000 if his death was determined to have been accidental or a homicide.