INFORMANT'S EPITAPH: SUICIDE NOTES

On the day before he was found dead in his Allegheny County Jail cell of an
apparent drug overdose, John Regis "Re Re" King Jr. sent five letters to
loved ones saying that he was planning to kill himself

Allegheny County Police say they are convinced those writings, which did
not arrive in the mail until two days after King was dead, are suicide
notes written out of desperation by the convicted drug smuggler turned
informer who, at age 36, was facing a sentence of life in prison.

Yesterday, Lt. John Brennan of the county police homicide unit said those
letters, combined with more than 50 interviews and other information that
has been obtained over the last two weeks, lead police to believe King died
by his own hand.

"We believe it's a suicide," Brennan said.

Yesterday, Chief Deputy Coroner Joe Dominick said most of the toxicology
reports that would determine what actually killed King had yet to be
completed.

"With all due respect to our good friend John Brennan, the cause and manner
of deaths in Allegheny County are ruled on by the coroner's office, not the
police," Dominick said.

"[King's death] will remain a pending investigation until an inquest is
concluded."

Dominick said an inquest would be scheduled shortly.

Investigators know a few things for certain about the death of the
controversial criminal turned federal witness.

In his last hours, during telephone calls to friends and family and in his
final writings, King made no mention of unsolved murders he was implicated
in or about questionable testimony he gave in one of the largest federal
drug trials in Western Pennsylvania. He also showed no remorse for a
multitude of crimes he was involved in during his life.

"He didn't admit anything. He didn't exculpate anyone from anything. He
didn't mention anybody else, just himself," Brennan said of the letters. He
would not reveal the specific contents of them, or discuss other aspects of
his investigation.

In the letters, King complained of severe headaches and about the prison
sentence he faced as a result of his July arrest on federal charges of
selling cocaine and steroids to a federal undercover agent.

The transactions were recorded on videotape and audiotape. During the early
months of his incarceration, King told friends he believed the recordings
would clear him of the crime.

But just a week or so before his death, King learned an expert who examined
the tapes found nothing that King could challenge in court.

It also was made clear to him that, unlike in the past, federal agents,
prosecutors and local police would refuse to cut him another deal in
exchange for his cooperation.

Despite that, King, shackled by the ankles and wrists, was jovial at a
pretrial hearing on Feb. 18, five days before his death. He joked and
laughed with his girlfriend and co-defendant, Laurie Diaz of McKeesport,
during the brief hearing that set the stage for his trial, which was to
have been this month.

Then, early on Feb. 23, King was found dead in his cell. A blood-filled
syringe that he had apparently pulled from his arm was found laying across
his chest, and on scraps of paper found strewn across his desk, King listed
the names of inmates who he said had sold him drugs during his incarceration.

Despite a history of violent crime dating back to his teen-age years, King
had managed to avoid lengthy prison sentences by implicating others.

Facing more than 40 years in prison in 1994 after he was caught trying to
purchase 15 kilograms of cocaine from one of his underlings for $200,000,
King was able to win release in just five years by cooperating with the
government.

He fingered his Texas drug supplier, as well as a handful of others below
him in the organization that distributed 330 pounds of cocaine and 1,000
pounds of marijuana here over a five-year period. If given the chance, King
admitted he would have tried to kill the individuals in the drug
organization and the agents who set him up.

On the witness stand, King admitted to stabbings, lying to authorities, and
firebombing and spraying machine gun bullets into the home of the parents
of a drug dealer who owed him money. He also admitted that he had broken
people's legs, bitten off a man's nose and continued to sell large
quantities of drugs after he became a cooperating witness.

He also told others that he had killed at least two men.

One of them was Joey Bertone, a McKeesport racketeer who has not been seen
since the summer of 1985 after he left a trucking business owned by a
relative of King's. Court records show Bertone had problems with King's
family before his disappearance.

The other was Matthew Giordano, a 24-year-old South Hills laborer, found
dead in July 1992 in a vacant lot in Stanton Heights. Giordano's sister had
reported King's drug activities and the threats King made to her family a
few days earlier.

The deaths remain unsolved.