Roommate Doubts That AIDS Victim Killed in Crash Committed Suicide

When a 33-year-old man plunged to his death in a car accident four days ago in Topanga Canyon, police immediately speculated that he may have committed suicide.

The car had gone over a cliff off Topanga Canyon Boulevard in daylight and there were no skid marks that might have indicated that the driver had tried to stop. But investigators based their supposition, in large part, on the fact that the victim, Mark Edwin Pennington of Echo Park, was carrying an AIDS clinic card in his wallet.

A telephone conversation with his roommate confirmed for police that Pennington had been diagnosed a month ago as having acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a usually fatal communicable disease that cripples the body’s ability to fight off other illnesses.

The roommate, who requested anonymity, said Wednesday that, although police told him their theory, “I refuse to believe it.”

He said, however, that Pennington had witnessed the deterioration and eventual death eight months ago of a good friend who had the disease.

Suicide Thoughts Uncommon

Sally Jue, director of psycho-social services for the AIDS Project Los Angeles, said that, although the organization has compiled no statistics on AIDS patients who have attempted suicide, self-destructive thoughts are not unusual for people with life-threatening diseases.

“It’s a trickier issue when someone has an illness that is not only debilitating but for which there is no cure,” Jue said. “The gestures tend to come closer to the end stages of the illness, when they become really despondent, bedridden and are starting to deteriorate.

“The average age of AIDS patients is the middle-30s. How many people are prepared to cope with death, dying and being permanently disabled at that age?”

A Cause Celebre

Pennington’s crash has become a cause celebre for county firefighters, who are worried about the health of four firefighters who unsuccessfully tried to revive the victim at the bottom of the cliff. One of the firefighters performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Pennington before learning that the victim had AIDS.

Although health officials say the chances are slim that the firefighters contracted the disease, the county Fire Department is considering a policy that would require rescuers to carry equipment that would allow them to revive people without resorting to mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. A decision is expected by Friday, according to Capt. Gordon Pearson, a Fire Department spokesman.

Medical experts say AIDS is usually transmitted through sexual contact, blood transfusions or intravenous drug use. AIDS primarily strikes homosexual men.

The roommate said Pennington had frequented gay bars and bathhouses, but curtailed his social activities when the AIDS epidemic broke out.

He said Pennington suspected he might have the disease when he started losing weight a few months ago. After doctors confirmed his fears, Pennington “broke down crying” and said “Why me?” his roommate recalled.

But Pennington, who was a high school football player, had recently started a special diet and weight-lifting program recommended by his doctors and seemed determined to give it a fight, the roommate said.

Could Have Lived 5 Years

“This thing is fatal, but they told him he could live five years with it,” the roommate said. “I told him the doctors might come up with some miracle thing. He was trying to beat it.”

He said Pennington also had bought a new car since learning he had AIDS. On the morning of the accident, the roommate said, Pennington “just said he was going for a drive.”

The roommate said that, when Pennington did not return, he phoned police the next day. “They asked me if he had suicidal tendencies, but I said, ‘No, he’s never talked about it.’ . . . They said it, but I don’t want to believe it,” he said.

‘It Wasn’t Suicide’

“I happen to think it wasn’t suicide,” the roommate added.

The roommate described himself as gay but said he and Pennington were not lovers and that he doesn’t “lose any sleep” worrying that he may contract AIDS.

“I’m careful, but I think it’s all in God’s hands,” he said. “It’s crossing over to the straight population now, too. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.”