GARY WEBB, 49, EX-MN REPORTER

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST WROTE CONTROVERSIAL SERIES

Gary Webb, a former Mercury News investigative reporter, author and
legislative staffer who ignited a firestorm with his controversial
stories, died Friday in an apparent suicide in his suburban Sacramento
home. He was 49.

The Sacramento County coroner's office said that when A Better Moving
Company arrived at Mr. Webb's Carmichael home at about 8:20 a.m.
Friday, a worker discovered a note posted to the front door which
read: "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an
ambulance."

Mr. Webb, an award-winning journalist, was found dead of a gunshot
wound to the head, Sacramento County Deputy Coroner Bill Guillot said
Saturday.

Mr. Webb's friends and colleagues described him as a devoted father
and a funny, dogged reporter who was passionate about investigative
journalism.

As a staff writer for the Mercury News from 1989 to 1997, he exposed
freeway retrofitting problems in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and
wrote stories about the Department of Motor Vehicles' computer
software fiascos.

Mr. Webb was perhaps best known for sparking a national controversy
with a 1996 story that contended supporters of a CIA-backed guerrilla
army in Nicaragua helped trigger America's crack-cocaine epidemic in
the 1980s. The "Dark Alliance" series in the Mercury News came under
fire by other news organizations, and the paper's own investigation
concluded the series did not meet its standards.

Mr. Webb resigned a year and a half after the series appeared in the
paper. He then published his book, "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the
Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion."

In the past few years, Mr. Webb worked in the California Assembly
Speaker's Office of Member Services and for the Joint Legislative
Audit Committee. The committee investigated charges that Oracle
received a no-bid contract from Gov. Gray Davis. After being laid off
from his legislative post last year, Mr. Webb was hired by the
Sacramento News and Review, a weekly publication.

Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer who
has known Mr. Webb for more than a decade, was distraught Saturday
when he heard that his friend may have taken his own life.

"He had a fierce commitment to justice, truth and cared a lot about
people who are forgotten and society tries to shove into the dark
corners," Dresslar said. "It's a big loss for me personally and a
great loss for the journalism community."

Services for Mr. Webb are pending.