Guest
A TOP-ranking US spy with a “hidden stockpile of guns and S&M gear“ shot himself dead in front of wife in June, according to reports. Anthony Schinella, 52, the National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues, shot himself in their front yard in Arlington, Virginia, on June 14. According to The Intercept, a Virginia medical examiner’s report cited Schinella’s cause of death as suicide. The top aide died from a gunshot wound to the head. Schinella had just recently married his wife Sara Cocoran, who is a journalist, and he was just weeks away from retiring. Cocoran told the publication that she was in the driveway trying to get away from him when he took his own life with a firearm. An FBI liaison to the CIA then entered Schinella’s home after his death. They took away his passports, secure phone, and combed through his property, his wife revealed. Later, she discovered an enormous bondage collection and S&M gear hidden in his house – along with 24 guns and ammunition. The CIA didn't provide Cocoran with any details surrounding her husband's suicide. Schinella was a high up military affairs analyst in the intelligence community in the United States. He was also a member of the powerful National Intelligence Council (NIC) and an expert on the Taliban's military capabilities. Schinella took his own life before The New York Times reported on June 26 that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. The NIC then drafted a memo claiming that the intelligence about the bounties was inconclusive – but this document was leaked. The dossier also left out the fact that Schinella shot himself. Corcoran recalled her husband's “astonishing intelligence and a heroic work ethic“ in CityWatch tribute. “He traveled to more than 100 countries on six continents, spoke several languages and was able to pick up the basics of practically any language before he even left for the airport,“ his widow wrote. “My husband Tony and I often discussed China's increasing influence in America’s public domain, as well as in other countries around the world. “China was one of our shared interests, as he was half-Chinese and I received my MBA from a business school in Shanghai.“ She remembered Schinella as an “astute identifier and observer of stealth influences upon current events that are beneath the mainstream media radar. #SchengenStoryNews
