In what appeared to be the second tragic death to occur in the post-Enron, scandal-plagued energy industry in four months, Charles Dana Rice, senior vice president and treasurer of energy giant El Paso Corp., was found dead last week of an “apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound” to the head at his home in the upscale River Oaks section of Houston, according to authorities. The news sent the company’s stock into a tailspin last Monday, but it picked up points later in the week.

His body was discovered at about 1 p.m. Sunday (June 2) in a closet at his home in the 2700 block of Newman, said Houston police spokesman Martin DeLeon. Rice’s death was being investigated by both Houston homicide officers and the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office, he noted. An autopsy had been performed on Rice’s body last week, a spokeswoman with the examiner’s office said, but she was unable to confirm when the results would be known.

Reports later surfaced that Rice had suffered from serious heart and kidney-related conditions, suggesting perhaps there was no link between his death and El Paso’s financial troubles. Still, the news made an already-jittery energy industry even more skittish. Rice, 47, had been an employee of El Paso for 25 years, and worked at its Houston headquarters at the time of his death, according El Paso spokeswoman Norma Dunn. Rice is survived by his wife and he had no children, she said.

Dunn declined to release any further details. “We are being supportive of the family, and are trying to respect their privacy,” she told NGI. “The employees of El Paso Corp. are deeply saddened by yesterday’s tragic news,” the company said in a prepared statement last Monday.

Rice’s apparent suicide comes amid tremendous tumult in the energy industry, as federal and state agencies are investigating companies for potential price manipulation and bogus “wash” trades in western markets and Texas (See NGI, May 27). It follows closely on the heels of the resignations of the chairmen and CEOs of Dynegy Inc. and CMS Energy (See NGI, June 3).

His death also came less than a week after El Paso announced plans to cut its energy trading work force in half, sell assets and reduce its debt in an attempt to ease the concerns of investors and credit-rating agencies (See NGI, June 3). The company’s stock was pummeled on Wall Street last Monday, falling to a new 52-week low of $19.30 immediately following the news of Rice’s death. The stock rebounded to $22.26 in mid-day trading Friday. El Paso stock had been as high as $60 a year ago.

“This is a tragic event for our company; however, the market reaction is unwarranted,” said El Paso Chairman William A. Wise. “There is no information with respect to the company’s [financial] performance or credit that was not fully discussed” by the company last week when it announced its comprehensive repositioning plan, he noted.

The news of Rice’s apparent suicide immediately triggered memories of the suicide of another energy executive earlier this year. J. Clifford Baxter, 43, who had resigned as vice chairman of the troubled Enron Corp. last May, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in late January (See NGI, Jan. 28). He was in a locked vehicle in Sugar Land, a Houston suburb, when authorities discovered his body. Baxter had been one of 29 former and current Enron executives and board members named as defendants in a federal lawsuit that claimed executives had made at least $1.1 billion by selling Enron stock between October 1998 and November 2001.

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