NEAH BAY — An Amazon senior project manager from Fort Worth, Texas, died this week from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scenic tip of Cape Flattery Trail, authorities said.
A tourist from Oregon found the body of Maurice Benjamin Sanner, 40, at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the farthest end of the trail atop a bluff and across from Tatoosh Island, Clallam County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ed Anderson said.
“It’s as far as you can go,” Anderson said.
Sanner was the third person ruled to have died by suicide in Clallam County in 16 days.
A Forks man, age 54, died by suicide Dec. 30, the last in a record year of 31 self-inflicted deaths in Clallam County, according to authorities.
Authorities said that a Sequim man, also 54, was the first to die by suicide in 2019 on Jan. 4.
Anderson said Sanner purchased the pistol he used in the suicide in December and did not leave a note.
Sanner’s 2016 Nissan Sentra was parked in the Cape Flattery Trail parking lot off Cape Flattery Road.
Anderson said Sanner’s car was seen in the parking lot at about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, speculating Sanner died Wednesday morning.
“The father had no idea why he was up here,” Anderson said.
Anderson had no indication from talking with Sanner’s family that Sanner had never been to Clallam County before his death.
As the second westernmost point in the contiguous U.S., Cape Flattery is “easy to pick out on a map,” Anderson said.
Anderson said Sanner worked for Amazon in Fort Worth.
Amazon’s only facility in Fort Worth is a fulfillment center, an employee said Wednesday. Amazon selects, packs and ships items from its fulfillment centers.
“Our thoughts are with Mr. Sanner’s family and friends during this difficult time,” Amazon spokeswoman Shevaun Brown said in an email.
According to Sanner’s LinkedIn profile, he was a senior information technology project manager and consultant in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Sanner spent most of his professional career in technology, and most of that in Germany, according to the profile.
At age 19, he was a technical support specialist for Siemens, the German industrial manufacturing giant, and was an intern at Microsoft Germany at age 29 before working for Microsoft Germany’s virtual Business Group Online Services from 2008-10.
He was a technical project manager for the German trust- and fund-management company Sire GmbH and Co. before becoming a senior project manager-team leader for Pirobase Imperia, a content management and product information management system company in Cologne, Germany, from 2012-16.
Authorities also ruled as a suicide the burning death of a former Air Force special forces instructor whose body was found April 1, 2017, in his car in a remote area of Neah Bay. The only two times Vaughn Alexander Richardson, 22, had been on the North Olympic Peninsula, he visited Hurricane Ridge, his mother said.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK or 1-800-273-8255.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
