Because finding out that the research on "mind control" continued would be a big scandal, and in the past journalists like Gary Webb and Michael Hastings, who uncovered scandals about the CIA, did not to end well. Probably the CIA didn't kill them, but I'm convinced it contributed to mess up their life enough to disrupt their work. Intelligence agencies around the world consider themselves, rightfully or not, guardians of national interests. If a journalist works to uncover stories that could damage them, she/he may be end up being considered a threat not only to the agency, but also to national interests and that would put she/he at risk. Since there are not enough structures in place to let unjust behaviors on the part of intelligence to be scrutinized, researching on such things is not something I would do without also expecting ill-fated consequences.
On wikipedia [1] it says "Multiple gunshot suicides are rare, but possible. In one study of 138 gunshot suicides, 5 (3.6%) involved two shots to the head, the first of which missed the brain."
I think that when Gary Webb commited suicide the CIA had already successfully disrupted his work and had no need to kill him. Example had already been given. However, was he still a threat and messing with his life wasn't an effective option, would they have killed him? They have done far worse things.
it is also possible for a firearm to doublefire.
its most common with un maintained semi auto pistols, but can happen easily enough with large calibre revolvers, due to the recoil.
It doesn't have to be unmaintained. A 1911 pistol can be made to bump fire pretty easily, especially if you have it in a weird position. While it really isn't impossible, if you take kind of a Bayesian view, the likelihood that it was mis-attributed murder probably goes up considerably once you restrict yourself to the subset of double gunshot suicides.
There should be a gig-economy job board for all those fearless souls who volunteered for a one way trip to mars to put that reckless abandon in service to the work of doing thankless life threatening tasks like ghost writing articles for leakers and whistleblowers.
