Madame Palfrey commits suicide

Naturally conspiracy theorists will be preparing a verdict of "suicided" before she spilt the beans won't be quiet after this news.

Authorities were called to the Sun Valley Estates Mobile Home Park in Tarpon Springs, Fla., by 76-year-old Blanche Palfrey, who found her daughter's body hanging by a nylon rope shortly before 11 a.m., Tarpon Springs police Capt. Jeffrey P. Young said at a news conference. He said Deborah Palfrey left at least two suicide notes, but he declined to discuss their contents.

Dan Moldea, who interviewed Palfrey several times for a possible book about her experiences (he was actually employed by Larry Flynt) , reportedly sad today that Palfrey told him 3 times she would kill herself before returning to prison. She had served an 18-month term in California in the early 1990s for running a prostitution service and told Moldea that it was "just a horrible, horrible period for her," the writer said.

"The first time she did time, it damn near killed her, she told me," Moldea said. "She wound up in a fairly tough prison, and the stress caused some sort of an illness, and it was a very debilitating illness that affected her eyesight."

Moldea said that, in three interviews last spring and summer, after she was indicted, Palfrey told him: "I'm not going back to jail. I'll kill myself first. I'll commit suicide before I go back to jail."

"Those were her exact words," he said.

Palfrey had been found guilty of running prostitutes and was out on bail awaiting sentence.

One of the escort service employees was former University of Maryland, Baltimore County, professor Brandy Britton, who was arrested on prostitution charges in 2006. She committed suicide in January before she was scheduled to go to trial.

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