The Octopus

A journalist chasing stolen software and a shadow network was found dead in a motel. Both wrists.

The confirmed spine: the Justice Department took Inslaw's PROMIS case-management software and, per two federal court rulings (later overturned on jurisdiction), 'took, converted, stole' it 'through trickery, fraud and deceit.' The lore's expansion: PROMIS backdoored and sold to allied intelligence services worldwide. Journalist Danny Casolaro, investigating what he called the Octopus — a network tying Inslaw to Iran-Contra and BCCI — was found in a Martinsburg motel bathtub in 1991, wrists cut a dozen times, his accordion file missing; ruled suicide, embalmed before the family was notified. The file remains the freelancer's memento mori.