Probes find no motive for official’s death

Little Rock, Ark. —- City and state police have closed their investigations into last summer’s shooting of Arkansas’ Democratic Party chairman without offering an explanation of why the attack occurred.

Bill Gwatney died Aug. 13 after being shot three times by a man who lost his job at a Target store that morning. The shooter, Timothy Dale Johnson, was shot and killed after threatening officers.

A police report said an autopsy found Effexor, an antidepressant, in Johnson’s blood, which may have played a part in his “irrational and violent behavior.”

“I wish there was a conclusion, but there wasn’t,” said Lt. Terry Hastings, a police spokesman.

Authorities discovered a note with a telephone number and the word “Gwatney” on it in Johnson’s home. But the report found that it was a telephone number for Gwatney Towing Co., which is no longer in business. The 986-page report says police searched through files at Gwatney’s businesses for Johnson’s name, but that it never turned up.

Gwatney owned three GM car dealerships and was a state senator before becoming the state’s Democratic chairman last year.