Wife of a senior US spy who killed himself claims he intended to ‘take me to the afterlife’ 

The wife of a high-ranking CIA operative who shot and killed himself two weeks after their wedding has claimed that he was intending to murder her and ‘take me to the afterlife’.

Sara Corcoran, 46, said that Anthony Ming Schinella, the most senior military affairs analyst in U.S. intelligence, was suffering from PTSD after being involved in four wars, and after almost 30 years in the CIA.

She said he was fascinated by Egyptian concepts of the underworld.

‘My husband was planning on murdering me. He had talked about taking me to the afterlife before,’ she told The Sun. 

‘We would often watch documentaries on Egypt, Valley of the Kings, pharaohs.

‘He had a love of Egypt; he spent a great deal of time in the Middle East, he spent several years living in Bahrain.’ 

She said on the night of June 14 he drank a glass and a half of vodka, and collected a stash of personal items to keep by his bed – including cards from the Chinese Zodiac, handcuffs, and love letters Corcoran had written him.

‘To have those three things together, you’re only going to sit there and kind of go through all of the notes I’ve ever written to you if you’re getting ready to leave this world,’ she said. 

While he continued drinking vodka, she begged him to ‘go to sleep’, telling him: ‘You’ve got to stop’.

She said: ‘He pulled out a Glock and threatened to kill himself for two hours. 

‘I was trying to talk him out of it. It was a traumatic ordeal.

‘I was only fearful he was going to kill me when he started asking me about my grandfather.

‘I didn’t call 911 at first because I was afraid he would shoot himself and me.’

Corcoran told the paper that Schinella was obsessed with her grandfather, Thomas Gardiner Corcoran.

He was famed as the first Washington lobbyist, and served as an adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt, working to come up with the New Deal.

Nicknamed ‘Tommy the Cork’, he died in 1981, and Schinella reportedly began asking who she loved more, and who was a better man.

Corcoran said she grew increasingly frightened, and as he was fiddling with the gas stove she ran away.

He followed her outside and as she jumped into his car, he shot himself in the head.

Corcoran said that after Schinella’s death, she discovered a large collection of bondage and S&M gear that had been hidden in his house.

She also discovered 24 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. 

Corcoran said that the CIA has completed an investigation into Schinella’s death, but that the agency didn’t provide her with any details. 

Schinella was the highest-ranking military affairs analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, and was also a member of the powerful National Intelligence Council.

He was an expert on the Taliban’s military capabilities, and his death came shortly before the New York Times reported on June 26 that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. 

Following the report, the NIC drafted a memo, which quickly leaked, claiming that the intelligence about the bounties was inconclusive.

The memo did not mention that the NIC’s top analyst on military affairs and Taliban expert had killed himself days earlier. 

In a tribute to Schinella published in CityWatch, Corcoran wrote that he possessed an ‘astonishing intelligence and an heroic work ethic.’ 

‘He traveled to more than 100 countries on six continents, spoke several languages and was able to pick up the basics of practically any language before he even left for the airport,’ she wrote.

Schinella is also survived by two daughters from a previous marriage. 

In an article last week for CityWatch, Corcoran suggested that her husband viewed Russia as a distraction, and China as the real foreign threat to America.

‘My husband Tony and I often discussed China’s increasing influence in America’s public domain, as well as in other countries around the world,’ she wrote.

‘China was one of our shared interests, as he was half-Chinese and I received my MBA from a business school in Shanghai.’

Corcoran said that prior to his death, Schinella had recommended that she read Clive Hamilton’s 2019 book Silent Invasion, which documents China’s aggressive attempts to shape Australian politics and culture.

‘My husband was an astute identifier and observer of stealth influences upon current events that are beneath the mainstream media radar, but warrant wide awareness of,’ she wrote. 

‘Our conversations could range from how the Chinese Security Services or PLA (People’s Liberation Army) had centralized its operations, to how they supported influence campaigns targeting universities, politicians, and public sentiment in Australia,’ she continued.

‘So while many of us in the United States have been preoccupied with Russian influence campaigns here, it turns out that the Chinese have been wreaking havoc on our ally Oz down under; and indeed the main threat to Australia’s national security interests today come from its largest trading partner to the northwest: China.’ 

If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255