Murder, Suicide, and a Child’s Death: The Tragedy of the #2 Man in the Commerce Department

William Lash is the smartest man I’ve ever met. Nobody’s even close.

A super-genius: One of those Harvard-Yale combos — Yale for undergrad, Harvard for law school. At just the age of 40, Lash was confirmed as the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Commerce Department. Quick-witted and impeccably credentialed, he skyrocketed through the ranks of politics, think tanks (Cato Institute), and academia.

He was also a black Republican, which was (and still is) something of a rarity. As you can imagine, the GOP was thrilled to include him in their ranks; with his academic pedigree, sly sense of humor, and God-given charm, he was impossible to dislike. His future, it seemed, was limitless: senator, congressman, governor… maybe even president.

I met him when he taught business law at George Mason University School of Law. (That’s what it was called then. GMU later received a big, fat donation from the Charles Koch Foundation and changed its law school’s name to honor Antonin Scalia. Very briefly, GMU’s law school became the Antonin Scalia School of Law… until someone realized that the acronym ASSOL might be a wee bit too on the nose for a lawyer. In 2016, it was re-christened the Antonin Scalia Law School.)

Unlike your stuffier, self-important professors, Lash went out of his way to make classes hysterically entertaining. Our final exam featured essay questions about Bill Goldberg staging a hostile takeover of the New World Order (nWo). And he was a badass, too. When he saw me outside smoking Marlboro Lights, he admonished me… for being a wimp.

“Boy, whatcha doing with those Lights?! A real lawyer should smoke Reds! You better hide those things when ya get out in the real world, Pinsker, or a real lawyer is gonna chew your ass up!”

We became friendly outside of the classroom and worked together on an idea I had: designing a pack of cigarettes with the matches and strike-strip built into the container. (Hey, when you wanna smoke and can’t find a match, it’s pretty frustrating.) Philip Morris wasn’t interested, alas, but Professor Lash was generous with his direction and feedback. The more time I spent with him, the greater my admiration grew.

I certainly wasn’t the only member of his fan club. At our law school graduation in 2000, our entire class voted for which professor we wanted to hear from. You guessed it: We chose William Lash.

A few days after I graduated, I left the mainland and moved to Hawaii with my (now) wife, and I never saw Lash again. Didn’t hear anything about him, either, until I received an email about his death in a murder/suicide that also ended the life of his preteen son.

I knew he was married, but I don’t recall him ever speaking about his wife to me. And he definitely never mentioned his child, who was described as autistic in news reports. I’m still not sure what the hell happened.

As best I can gather, there was some kind of domestic dispute at his home. At 10:00 p.m. on July 14, 2006, the police were called. This led to a short standoff, where a tactical team and hostage negotiators attempted — unsuccessfully — to contact Lash. Shotgun blasts followed.

When they entered his home at 3:50 a.m., Bill Lash and his special-needs son were dead. They were both sprawled on the floor together, and they both had upper-body bullet holes.

There was no note. No motive was uncovered.

He was 45.

Naturally, I scoured the Internet for any kind of clue — it was just so bizarre and so unsettling — how could a guy this smart do something so evil?! It didn’t make any sense.

It still doesn’t.

Online, there was no shortage of theories. The tin-hat crowd came out of the woodwork to share one conspiracy after another. Maybe it was a coverup! Maybe it was a Mafia hit, and it only looks like a murder/suicide! Maybe he saw something he wasn’t supposed to see, and the White House offed him!

When someone you knew, admired, and respected dies, it’s revolting when crackpots use his corpse as fodder for their conspiratorial fantasies. After a while, I couldn’t read anymore.

But I learned some valuable lessons:

1. You never really know anyone. All you know is what they tell you… and they’re not telling you everything.
2. Few heartaches can rival the agony of learning your hero isn’t heroic. So don’t gloat when someone’s hero falls from their pedestal. It really hurts. Messes with your head.
3. Intelligence and sanity are not the same thing. 
4. Sometimes, the simplest explanation isn’t just the most probable; it’s also the saddest.
5. The “opportunity cost” of wasted genius is cataclysmic. The world never got to see Bill Lash’s full potential, and the loss is irreplaceable. (And the loss of his child is unforgivable.)

In 1897, Edwin Arlington Robinson published a poem called “Richard Cory.” It described a man of exemplary class and attire, beloved and admired by everyone he knew. Richard Cory was wealthy (“richer than a king”), and the townspeople “…thought that he was everything, To make us wish that we were in his place.”

Then, “one calm summer night,” Richard Cory put a bullet in his head.

Please be kind to everyone. You never know the torment that’s billowing between their ears. Sometimes, the right words at the right time can be the difference between life and death.

Remind your friends, family, and loved ones how much you care. If you can, do it today.

Tomorrow might be too late.