No one knows for sure if he left a suicide note, does anyone have any theories that the FBI might have secretly kept his suicide note if he left one? I think so. or maybe his wife Rosanne kept it. anyone got say on this?

Never heard of Melvin....

I hear through the grapevine that he was an associate of the Scarfo mob.

On February 29, 1960, while at his home in Florence, South Carolina, Melvin Purvis died from a gunshot wound to the head fired from the pistol given to him by fellow agents when he resigned from the FBI. (The popular folk anecdote that the gun that killed Purvis was in fact the same gun that he used to take down Dillinger is apocryphal.) The FBI investigated the shooting and labeled it a suicide, though the official coroner's report did not find sufficient evidence to label the cause of death as such. It was later determined that Purvis may have shot himself accidentally while trying to extract a tracer bullet jammed in the pistol.[12] He was 56 years old.

Authors Gentry and Summers conclude that Purvis committed suicide upon learning he had inoperable brain cancer.

some Purvis was an up & coming star of the FBI...however the jealous and ambitious J. Edgar Hoover would have none of it and saw to it that Purvis resigned from the FBI, receiving no credit or acclaim for his valuable work and foremost, the killing of John Dillinger, one of the most dangerous criminals of the 1930's. Hoover also prevented Purvis from getting any decent work in law enforcement even after leaving the FBI. Purvis was forced to make a living by selling commercial products which he found humiliating. Virtually eclipsed into obscurity via the power of his former boss, Purvis committed suicide in 1960.

Apple

Hoover has had several competent biographers since his death. None has confirmed the story about the photo of him, cross-dressed. Doesn't mean he wasn't gay--does mean that it hasn't been proven.

Nonetheless, Hoover wrecked many lives. The irony is that, with the dirt he accumulated on people in high places, and the esteem he enjoyed as the nations' "Number One Commie and Crime Fighter," Hoover could have been a real menace to democracy. But all he ever wanted was to hold onto his job. At the end of the day, he was nothing more than the consummate bureaucrat.