Sportswriter, Martin Manley, committed suicide at the Overland Park PD, Kansas City, on Thursday Aug 15 after meticulously documenting his suicide on a website he put up the day before his death – Martin Manley: My Life and Death – Born 8-15-53, Died 8-15-13, Age 60 – www.martinmanleylifeanddeath.com

Manley was almost fanatical on statistics and worked for a short time at the Kansas City Star Sports Department until leaving to write his own blogs on his website – “Martin Manley’s Sports In Review”.

Manley started his last blog with the words: “This is my final post on Sports In Review and the reason is pretty major. Before I get into that, I want to say how much I appreciated being able to follow my passion regarding statistics – more specifically, sports statistics – for so many years. It’s been a blast and I’ve had a great opportunity to make a contribution to the many areas that make up this subject.”

He goes on to say, “The reason for my departure is 100% within my ability to control. You see, earlier today, I committed suicide. I created a web-site to deal with the many questions a person would rightfully have. It’s called martinmanleylifeanddeath.com. It went live today. In my opinion, there is no question which you could conceivably ask that I have left unanswered on that site. My goal with this post is closure for SIR [Sports In Review].

“I have communicated with hundreds of readers over the years and I’ve made a lot of internet friends. I’m impressed that there really are intelligent people still left out there considering the decline in our educational standards. Even so, it took a special breed to read my writings because a good deal of it was either extremely targeted to a narrow field or else very esoteric or both. And, I didn’t pull any punches when being critical of coaches, players or announcers – some of which were either incredibly ignorant or simply incompetent – and I think you know who I’m referring to.

“That kind of talk turned some people off, but the one thing I always did was to provide extremely detailed evidence of any position I had on anything. When a spade is a spade, I felt it was fair to call it a spade… and I didn’t care who liked it or who didn’t.

“But, that’s all in the past now. For those of you that regularly email me and converse about issues that would cause the vast majority of the population’s eyes to glaze over, I hope you find a way to get your fix in the future. Thanks for reading!

“Martin”

To read the whole blog go to: http://sportsinreview.com/blog/?p=8679#more-8679

Although Manley didn’t specifically say he had been diagnosed with dementia he hinted at it saying he was often now forgetting why he had opened the refrigerator door, couldn’t remember why he had come down the stairs, etc. He said he wanted to be able to commit suicide whilst he was in control of the situation …. before it was too late and someone else made the decisions for him.

So how did he commit suicide? I expect it was by shooting himself. He wrote about various methods of doing it, but decided on using a firearm.

“Of course, even that wasn’t as simple as it might seem – at least not to me,” he wrote. “I owned two 22-gauge pistols, but both had mechanical problems. Even if they worked, would a 22 kill me? Very possibly not. So, that meant a higher caliber pistol. I was about to go out and buy one, but coincidentally, one fell into my lap about six weeks before I needed it. I took it out and practiced to make sure I had it figured out… the rest is history.

“One of the problems with shooting oneself is the obvious mess. I thought about that a lot. I didn’t want anyone I knew discovering my body and I didn’t want to make a mess in the house – something my sister or my landlord would have to deal with. No way.

“I also didn’t want anyone discovering my body or witnessing it who wasn’t trained for such a thing. I finally decided the best way to do it would be at 5AM on August 15, 2013 at the far southeast end of the parking lot at the Overland Park Police Station. If everything worked out right – and I’m sure it did, I called 911 at 5AM. I told them “I want to report a suicide at the south end of the parking lot of the Overland Park Police Station at 123rd and Metcalf. Bang.”

“They should find me in about two minutes.”

Amongst Manley’s last words are: “Lastly, at some point in reading this site you would have asked whether I was ultimately satisfied with my life, so I decided this was the best place to address it. I suspect nobody is completely satisfied and I’m no different. No, I wasn’t fully satisfied with my life, but I was fully satisfied with my death!”

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1LYr3z4Z4&feature=youtu.be

See also:

A math genius with dementia took his own life, but he left behind this website

By Fernando Alfonso III From The DailyDot

Martin Manley was tired of forgetting to close the garage door behind, to zip up his pants, and to remember the names of his best friends.

He was a mathematical wizard with an IQ of 156. He was beginning to suffer from dementia, a neurologically crippling disease that detrimentally affects a person’s memory, language, and problem-solving ability, among other things. It is incurable.

So on Thursday, Manley’s 60th birthday, he decided to take his own life. But before he did so, he created a website to tell his story and to have the “most organized good-byes in recorded history.”

“The point of this is that with only a brother and sister, no children, no nieces or nephews, I will have been forgotten pretty fast unless I did something that was way outside the box,” Manley wrote.

The site, martinmanleylifeanddeath.com, is broken up into two parts dealing with his life and decision to commit suicide. Manley provides detailed explanations behind his decision to die at 60, stating that he “could take pride in the fact that I wasn’t going to be sucking on the nipple of the federal debt by taking social security and medicare.”

“It’s unfair to rob someone of something they love or even like or even know without an explanation,” Manley wrote. “Having said that, you also owe me. You owe me the time it takes to understand why I did what I did without prejudging. I’ve done my part. The rest is up to you. If you opt to not read it, then I’m tempted to say ‘You can’t handle the truth!’… but won’t.”

Manley enjoyed playing poker and, until 2012, worked as a sports statistician at the Kansas City Star. He also authored three books on sports.

Manley’s website has been down Friday morning after it was posted on Reddit’s popular r/wtf forum, where it’s collected more than 2,400 comments discussing his decision.

“Nobody has the right to judge him for making this decision—it’s a rational choice, and it’s his right to make it,” Criminoboy commented. “It may not be a common choice, but i think the negative reaction is more a symptom of society’s failure to come to terms with the inevitability of death than anything else.”

One of the most prevalent forms of dementia is Alzheimer’s. In the U.S., Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death. More than 5 million Americans currently suffer from the disease.

“In 2012, 15.4 million caregivers provided more than 17.5 billion hours of unpaid care valued at $216 billion,” the Alzheimer’s Association states on its website. “In 2013, Alzheimer’s will cost the nation $203 billion. This number is expected to rise to $1.2 trillion by 2050.”

Reddit has created a mirror for Manley’s site (go to http://www.zeroshare.info/) for people to visit while it rebounds from the spike in traffic it has received from the social news site.

H/T Reddit | Photo via martinmanleylifeanddeath.com

For more on this story go to:

http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/martin-manley-suicide-website/