Michael Scott made his living in Chicago politics as one of Mayor Richard Daley’s guys out front.

The mayor put him on a series of public boards, from the Park District to the Chicago Board of Education. He made a decent living in real estate, and for 30 years he did what all front guys do:

Talk to reporters, sit in front of news cameras and lend his face to the mayor’s policies and enterprise.

What’s strange is that this very public man found an extremely private place to die.

The place where Scott was found early Monday, with a single gunshot wound in the head, is on the maps as part of the vibrant and high-tech River North neighborhood.

But actually, the place where he fell is a no-man’s land along the North Branch of the Chicago River, a difficult place to reach, especially for a 60-year-old stumbling around in the pitch darkness, over uneven ground, with no light and no moon.

Read more at the Chicago Tribune

image East Bank Club, near the scene of Michael Scott’s death