The ex-Wall Street trader who collapsed and died in a Phoenix court room last month after he was convicted of torching his mansion likely committed suicide by popping a homemade cyanide pill, authorities said.
Maricopa County Sheriff's investigators found a coffee-can sized canister labeled "sodium cyanide" in Michael Marin's car on Tuesday night, as well as evidence that the beleaguered ex-millionaire bought it from a chemicals website in 2011, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said. .
Marin's son told police they received a purposely delayed email from his father the day after he dided with information about his will and instruction to check his car, which he had left in Mesa, The Arizona Republic reported.
Arpaio said the chemical company, Chemical-Supermarket.com, was cooperating.
EX-WALL STREET BANKER MAY HAVE SWALLOWED POISON PILL DURING COURTROOM CONVICTION
The can was sent to the county medical examiner's office, where its contents, which appeared to be a light powder, would be tested against substances found in Marin's body.
"All indications point to suicide, but until the final report, the investigation remains open," Arpaio said at a news conference.
Marin paid $68.64 for the can and had it mailed to his house, the Phoenix New Times reported.
Marin, 53, was convicted on June 28 of torching his $3.5 million mansion in Phoenix's tony Biltmore Estates neighborhood in 2009 because he couldn't keep up with the $17,000 mortgage payments.
Firefighters found him outside the house in a scuba tank and mask, and Marin said he had escaped down an emergency ladder from a second floor window.
After the jury delivered its verdict, news cameras caught a distraught-looking Marin burying his face in his hands and appearing to put something in his mouth.
A few minutes later, the Yale-educated lawyer turned in his chair and started convulsing violently before falling on the floor.
He was pronounced dead later a local hospital.
Arpaio said investigators didn't know why Marin would have chosen to kill himself so publicly.
"He committed suicide in front of the cameras in the courtroom for the whole world to see," the sheriff said.
Marin’s crime would have put him away for nearly 16 years.
Dr. Anne-Michelle Ruha, a toxicologist at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, told The Republic that the disgraced banker would only have had to swallow about 200 milligrams of cyanide to die as quickly as he did.
"Cyanide goes to the top of the list of things we would refer to as knock-down agents," she said.
With Erik Ortiz
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