"They Were Socially Adept and Went to the Very Best Schools..."
That's how a family friend describes the children of John Donovan, a Boston area entrepreneur and professor who is alleging that his children tried to extort him for his money and that the eldest, James Donovan, a money manager at Goldman Sachs, hired a couple of people he believes are Russian (no explanation as to why) to shoot him. According to his wife, he survived the shooting, because his belt buckle deflected a bullet. He went skiing almost two weeks later and more mischief making occured:
While Mr. Donovan and his wife were skiing, police responded to another alarm at their Hamilton home. They found white powder on two tables and a piece of paper with the word "killer" written on it.
Maybe it's just us, but we're inclined to think the kids didn't do it, if only because we're pretty sure that garden variety extortion is much, much simpler than this. And while "white powder" wouldn't, in our experience, be totally inconsistent with "Goldman employee", writing "killer" on a piece of paper is just a little too clichéd. A little too b-story-in-a-Gene-Plotkin-film. Then again, we can't help but remember the handwritten to-do-list insurance fraudster Martin Frankel left behind when he was arrested, the top item of which was "launder money." Sometimes we give people too much credit.
Estate of War [WSJ]
