Police Rule Census Worker Hanging a Suicide

Authorities are saying a Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with "fed" scrawled on his chest committed suicide and staged his death to look like a homicide. According to Kentucky police, 51-year-old Bill Sparkman died where he was found, bound, gagged and with an ID badge taped to his neck in the woods of southeastern Kentucky.

Sparkman was a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy. He had recently taken out two life insurance policies, neither of which covered suicide. Sparkman's son might also have been eligible for a $10,000 death gratuity for census workers killed on the job. Investigators say he acted alone in manipulating the scene to conceal the suicide. (More Bill Sparkman stories.)