Police finds nothing to suggest US oil tycoon committed suicide

Police in Oklahoma City say they have found no evidence Chesapeake Energy co-founder Aubrey McClendon committed suicide when he died in a fiery car crash in March.

McClendon’s car hit a concrete bridge abutment at 125 kilometers per hour just a day after a Federal grand jury indicted him for allegedly rigging the price of oil and gas leases. The car was completely destroyed.

The medical examiners reported the cause of death as blunt force trauma. The police said there was no indication McClendon tried to stop his car before he hit the bridge pillar.

The two-month investigation, including reviews of phone records and e-mails as well as interviews with McClendon’s friends and associates, revealed nothing that would point to suicide.

“We found no evidence that points to suicide but we can’t be 100 percent certain. There’s no note, there’s no e-mail, there’s no conversation that said that he was going to do this,” said Captain Paco Balderrama of the Oklahoma City Police Department.

The state medical examiner plans to release a final report on the death soon.

McClendon is credited with contributing to restoring US energy production after he started leasing land to extract oil and gas trapped in shale formations by means of hydraulic fracturing or fracking.