Deborah Jeane Palfrey's Suicide Notes: Death Was My Only "Exit Strategy."

TAMPA, Fla. — The woman known as the "D.C. Madam" apologized to her mother and sister in suicide notes, saying she couldn't bear going to prison and saw killing herself as the only "exit strategy."

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, convicted last month of running an elite Washington prostitution ring, wrote to her mother that she could not "live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what you and I have come to regard as this 'modern day lynching,' only to come out of prison in my late '50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman."

The notes were released by police Monday.

Palfrey, 52, hanged herself with a nylon rope Thursday in a shed outside her mother's mobile home in the Florida Gulf Coast community of Tarpon Springs, northwest of Tampa. Her mother, 76-year-old Blanche Palfrey, discovered the body.

Deborah Palfrey was convicted of running a prostitution service that catered to members of Washington's political elite, including Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican. She denied her escort service engaged in prostitution, saying that if any of the women engaged in sex acts for money, they did so without her knowledge.

She was free while she awaited sentencing on July 24 and had been staying with her mother.

Her suicide appeared to have been planned for days. The note to her mother was dated April 25, nearly a week before she killed herself. Police said the notes were found on a night stand in the bedroom where she'd been staying. One of the notes said, "Do not revive. Do not feed under any circumstances."

In the note to her younger sister, Bobbie, Palfrey expressed her love and told her to "be strong for mom."

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"Also, you must comprehend that there was no other way out, i.e., 'exit strategy,' other than the one I have chosen here," she wrote. "Know I am at peace, with complete certainty, I believe Dad is standing watch _ prepared to guide me into the light."

Also Monday, police announced that the medical examiner's office officially ruled Palfrey's death a suicide by hanging. A toxicology report is pending.

Her death last week had sparked widespread Internet chatter among those who speculated that someone killed her to keep her from identifying more prominent clients of the escort service.

"Tarpon Springs Police Department detectives, after following up on several investigative avenues have not discovered any new evidence which would indicate anything other than a suicide by hanging in this case," spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Young said.

Palfrey's mother and sister identified her handwriting in the suicide notes, Young said.

A federal jury convicted Palfrey on April 15 of money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering. Prosecutors said she ran the prostitution service for 13 years. The trial concluded without revealing many new details about the service or its clients. Vitter was among possible witnesses but did not take the stand.

Palfrey had vowed that she would not go to prison, even telling a Washington writer that she would commit suicide first.

Comments

[Felicty]

What unmitigated bullshit.

Of course she was murdered.

[geneven]

And OF COURSE you have evidence? I don't think you do.

[ruyen]

Evidence that she wasn't suicidal but feared she would be killed, and evidence of motive by her enemies. But yeah, no hard evidence yet that she was murdered, just a ton of motive and reasons why she wouldn't kill herself.

[CaptainStormfield]

Its sad but I knew she would wind up dead as soon as she tried to leverage her client lists.

[revko]

Suicide by hanging is not a common female choice.
The fact that her body was found hanging on her mother's property smacks of gangland style whacking: a message to the rest of the family of "This is what happens and we know where YOU live"
Same thing accomplished with "suicide" letter sent to her sister.
If congress can investigate Terri Schaivo it sure as hell can investigate this!!!

[longislandlol]

Sad-- why couldn't she have moved her business to Nevada?

[ruyen]

Because her clients are in DC. Better question is:
Why couldn't those customers work towards making her business (that they enjoy) legal like it is down there and in other countries? Oh, because they're hypocritical pieces of shit who'd rather sneak around breaking the laws they have the power to change and have her killed if she threatened to talk, rather than growing a pair and trying to pass legislation to decriminalize this victim-less act.

[deckard70]

Exactly as Ruyen says -- every customer should be standing up and declaring that this business should be legal, perhaps a part of the hotel industry.

She faced 5 or 6 years in a country club, white collar prison, after which she could easily have emigrated to Canada or someplace where prostitution is legal, and would have been able to quickly return to the level of life she had before. Book and movie deals would have paid her too, even if technically you can't profit from crime. There is simply no reason why she'd have killed herself.

[ibsteve2u]

"sparked widespread Internet chatter among those who speculated that someone killed her to keep her from identifying more prominent clients"

Symptom of the times. When you have people who invent lies to justify the deaths of thousands of their own, is it really a symptom of paranoia to be unable to immediately rule out the possibility that they'd kill one little madam?

[eugenegerard]

Fool