Dr. Julian Colon, the founder and CEO of a pharmaceutical giant recently targeted by an online harassment campaign, was found shot to death in his home in the city’s posh Squirrel Hill neighborhood early Saturday, according to authorities.
Colon, 81, had come under wide scrutiny earlier this year after a digital activist released confidential company files linking Colon to a practice of exposing inmates to radiation and other toxic chemicals without their consent in the early 1970s, when Colon was then an emerging star in his field of gene therapy and disease intervention.
Officers found him shot to death inside his living room early Tuesday, according to police sources. Paramedics pronounced him dead about 4:45 a.m., a few minutes after they arrived.
Thomas McGarrity, a lieutenant in the police department’s investigations branch, gave limited information outside the Squirrel Hill North police station overnight, where media gathered for a press conference. He said Colon was found dead, but wouldn’t elaborate on motive or whether there was foul play.
“We’re considering all possibilities, as we always do, at this stage in the investigation,” McGarrity said. “Mr. Colon was found having suffered fatal injuries, and we’d ask that you respect his family’s privacy at this time. More information will be forthcoming.”
Attorneys for Colon’s children didn’t respond to requests for comment, except to ask for “privacy during this difficult time.” His wife, also a renowned doctor, died last year.
McGarrity wouldn’t connect Colon’s death with the leak of information targeting him earlier this year, a practice some call “doxxing,” or even say whether they were investigating Colon’s death as a homicide.
Neighbors at the scene early Saturday expressed near universal shock, though none agreed to be named out of fear of being connected to the swirl of allegations against Colon.
“I hope this was personal. It’s terrible to say, but I don’t want to have to worry that my family isn’t safe, that we could be next,” said one neighbor. “Not saying he deserved it, God rest his soul. But I have a family here too.”
One neighbor said she heard a commotion but didn’t call police because she didn’t think it was gunfire at the time, but now knowing Colon had been found dead, is certain that’s what she heard.
“I woke to the sound of two back-to-back booms,” she said. “I was startled at first, you know? That feeling when you aren’t sure if you heard something because you’re in a deep sleep? But then I heard three more booms. It was terrifying.”
McGarrity wouldn’t elaborate on Colon’s injuries or elaborate on the call for service that brought police to the home in the first place. The online radio traffic archive that normally records city radio traffic was down at the time, and officials wouldn’t release radio traffic when requested by The Ledger.
Colon under scrutiny
The practice of exposing inmates to radiation and other toxic chemicals happened under Colon’s knowledge, at least, since 1968, according to a log kept by Colon and leaked by a digital activist using the moniker “NO/ONE.” He was working as a staff doctor in a Puerto Rico prison at the time.
Colon and his attorneys have denied wrongdoing. Federal investigations are ongoing, though sources said any wrongdoing, which appears to have ended in the early 1970s, was likely outside the statute of limitations and that criminal charges would be unlikely.
Notes, apparently from Colon’s personal log at the time, show he was at least aware of, if not directing, radiation and chemical exposure to inmates to see how they reacted over time to small doses – an apparent attempt to mimic environmental exposure from, say, a leaky factory.
Sources said that because Colon hasn’t been a practicing doctor in nearly two decades, the consequences against him are likely limited to his role as CEO of Colon Pharmaceutical, sources previously told The Ledger.
Elected officials and other prominent figures have been largely silent on the matter. The park district, which built soccer fields across the city using donations from Colon’s foundation, has refused to comment. Residents organized a protest at a Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy meeting after the allegations against Colon were made public, but officials retreated into a closed meeting just after it began and they have only conducted cursory business in public since, taking up no new initiatives in public.
But Colon largely escaped consequence: the board of his company retained him as CEO while denying wrongdoing, and protests lasted only a couple days.