Although many expressed shock that publisher Philip Merrill apparently committed suicide, people close to Merrill said he showed signs of depression in the final weeks of his life.
“He wasn’t beside himself,” but he exhibited uncharacteristic lethargy, said Tom Marquardt, the executive editor of The (Annapolis) Capital, one of the newspapers Merrill’s company owned.
Merrill had heart surgery about a year ago and was taking about four or five different heart medications, according to Marquardt. His family understood that many people go through depression after heart surgery and urged Merrill to visit a doctor, which Merrill eventually did, Marquardt said. He said he didn’t know what kind of doctor Merrill saw or what came of the visit.
“I don’t think at any point did they ever think it had reached the level of contemplating suicide,” Marqaurdt said.
According to the National Institutes of Health, as many as 40 percent of patients who undergo bypass surgery — which Merrill did — experience post-surgical depression.
Merrill was the owner and publisher of Washingtonian Magazine, The Capital and several other Maryland newspapers. He made multimillion-dollar donations to the University of Maryland’s journalism school, which bears his name, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Merrill also served as president and chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and assistant secretary general of NATO in Brussels.
Some medication for heart disease is known to cause depression, said Harry A. Brandt, head of the department of psychiatry at St. Joseph Medical Center in Baltimore.
“Patients who are on cardiac medication need to be monitored carefully for the development of depressive symptoms,” Brandt said.
The Natural Resources Police were in touch with the Merrill family from the beginning of the investigation and “at some point after the body was discovered,” the family concluded the death was likely a suicide, Marquardt said.
Although it has been widely reported that Merrill was found with a gunshot wound to the head, neither Marquardt (who is also serving as the family’s spokesman), the medical examiner or the Natural Resources police would confirm or deny that. Marquardt said he genuinely didn’t know.
Autopsy results were still pending and would be released on Friday at theearliest, said Cindy Feldstein, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner.
