Did Depression or an Alleged Bully Boss Prompt Editor's Suicide?

Aug. 19, 2010— -- In the days before Kevin Morrissey committed suicide near the University of Virginia campus, at least two co-workers said they warned university officials about his growing despair over alleged workplace bullying at the award-winning Virginia Quarterly Review.

"I told them, 'I'm very concerned about Kevin; I'm afraid he might try to harm himself,'" said a colleague and friend of Morrissey, who asked not to be identified. "They asked me to clarify what I meant and I repeated that I was afraid he might harm himself. If someone had just done something."

On July 30, Morrissey, the review's 52-year-old managing editor, walked to the old coal tower near campus and shot himself in the head. Morrissey's death underscored the turmoil at the high-profile journal, according to co-workers.

Maria Morrissey said her brother's phone records showed that he placed at least 18 calls to university officials in the final two weeks of his life. The phone records, obtained by ABCNews.com, showed calls to the human resources department, the ombudsman, the faculty and employee assistance center, and the university president.

"Kevin was asking for help," said Maria Morrissey, who had been estranged from her brother in recent years, but has started looking into the circumstances of his death.

Morrissey's sister and co-workers acknowledged that he long suffered from depression. But they insisted that he took his life only after the university failed to respond to repeated complaints about alleged bullying by his boss, Ted Genoways. Other employees, they said, also complained about being bullied by the journal's top editor.

"Bullying seems to make it like some sort of schoolyard thing," said the colleague who asked not to be named. "It's really a much more subtle kind of erasure. 'I'm not going to talk to you. I'm going to come in the side office and shut the door. I will pretend you don't exist.' The university has these [human resources] people, but they don't do anything. After one of your colleagues has killed himself, it's beyond the point of mediation. They didn't protect us. We went again and again and again and they didn't protect us."

Genoways, who is highly regarded in literary circles, has denied the allegations of bullying. He said Morrissey's own depression prompted the suicide. "His long history of depression caused him trouble throughout his career, leading often to conflicts with his bosses," he said in a statement to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In the statement, Genoways claimed that the university already "reviewed all the allegations being made against me and found them to be without grounds." A university spokeswoman said the investigation, including a financial audit of the magazine, was continuing.