Executive of collapsed mortgage company commits suicide

An executive of a collapsed subprime mortgage lender jumped to his death from a bridge Friday, shortly after his wife's body was found inside their New Jersey home, authorities said.

Photo: Executive of collapsed mortgage company commits suicide

Executive of collapsed mortgage company commits suicide

The deaths of Walter Buczynski, 59, and his wife, Marci, 37 — the parents of two boys — were being investigated as a murder-suicide, according to the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.

Walter Buczynski was a vice president of Columbia, Md.-based Fieldstone Mortgage Co., a high-flying subprime mortgage lender, the AP reports.

Today on the official site of Fieldstone mortgage you can find the following: ‘Fieldstone mortgage company has ceased accepting loan applications and funding mortgage loans. We also have ceased accepting applications for broker approvals. We will continue to work with customers and brokers in providing them with information they have submitted to us during this difficult time.’

Suicide prevention advocates believe that suicide by bridge is more likely to be impulsive than other means and that barriers can have a significant effect on reducing the incidence of suicides by bridge.

One study in Washington D.C., showed that setting barriers in one bridge, the Duke Ellington Bridge, did not cause an increase of suicides at the nearby Taft Bridge.Families of victims and groups that help the mentally ill thus often lobby governments to erect such barriers. One new barrier is the Luminous Veil on the Prince Edward Viaduct in Toronto, once considered the world's second most deadly bridge with over 400 jumps on record. The Sydney Harbour Bridge, Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal, and the Arroyo Seco Bridge in Pasadena, California are other bridges that had formerly had unobstructed panoramic views that have seen barriers erected.

Special telephones are sometimes installed at such bridges, with connections to crisis hotlines.

San Francisco supervisor Tom Ammiano, who also is a representative on the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, proposed in March 2005 to fund a study on erecting a suicide barrier on the bridge. Jump for Life is an alternative proposal to allow bungee jumping from the bridge structure, with proceeds to help fund suicide prevention.