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The lifeless body of an Apple employee was found the morning of April 27 in a conference room on Building 1 at the company’s Cupertino, Calif., campus, according to the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office.
The man, who had a gun lying near him, was found unresponsive after an emergency call to report a “possible suicide” was placed to 911 at 8:38 a.m. PDT, and he was pronounced dead on the scene, a sheriff’s deputy told reporters.
As of 5:30 p.m. PDT April 27, the Santa Clara County medical examiner coroner’s office was still in the process of determining the cause of death and trying to contact the victim’s next of kin, local television station KTVU reported from the scene.
The victim’s name was not released, and Apple had no comment on the incident April 27.
“The investigation is focused on a wide array of possible reasons including, but not limited to, Apple’s stock slide,” the sheriff’s spokeswoman said.
Apple’s quarterly earnings report April 26 showed the company’s revenue dropping 13 percent, its first setback since 2003. The stock slid about 10 percent from $104.16 to $95.65 in after-hours trading April 26, translating to roughly $50 billion of paper capital value. The stock rebounded to $97.93 late on April 27.
A sheriff’s department spokeswoman told reporters on the scene that no one else was involved and said the death was an “isolated incident,” adding that nobody else on campus or in the public was at risk.
Apple kept the rest of its campus open for business all day, although the immediate area in Building 1 was closed to traffic during the investigation.
Photo courtesy of Milpitas Post