The Baltimore inspector general has issued a new report on the death of Robert Lee Clay, a prominent local businessman and minority business advocate whose May 2005 death, officially ruled a suicide, has been viewed with suspicion by family members and community leaders.
But the mystery continues because the inspector, Hilton Green, would not say what he found.
Green, whose job charges him with investigating waste, fraud and abuse in Baltimore, spent the past 5 1/2 months interviewing people he said were not available or willing to talk to city homicide investigators when they initially investigated the death.
"A lot of things change in four years," Green said. "As an end result, there were individuals that commented on things. There were individuals that provided extra information that may not have been available to the police at that time."
Green said the roughly 50-page report is based on "dozens" of interviews with people including medical examiners, friends and clergy.
It includes some specific recommendations about "people of interest" whom Green believes law enforcement should interview.
He initially had hoped that U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings would hand-deliver the report to the Department of Justice. "The people of interest who have to be interviewed are not in Baltimore," he said. Green mailed it last week.
Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, declined to comment on whether the office had received the report. As a policy, her office will not confirm or deny any investigations.
Still, even the whiff of a new development is bound to ignite a new round of speculation about Clay's death. The 58-year-old contractor was found dead in his Reservoir Hill office with a single gunshot wound to the head.
The city police investigated, and the state medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.
At the request of City Councilman James B. Kraft, the FBI also probed the death. It concurred in 2007 with the findings that Clay shot himself.
Green said that he began his own review after receiving a request from the police civilian review board and members of the community. He declined to specify who asked for the case to be reopened.
He said that he could not calculate the number of hours he has spent on the investigation, but worked on it on and off while preforming other duties.
"It was not so much a homicide investigation but interview people of interest who came forward with information that was not provided to the police," Green said.
