James S. McDonald, CEO of Rockefeller & Co., dead in apparent suicide at 56

James S. McDonald, the CEO of money-management firm Rockefeller & Co., died Sunday from an apparently self-inflicted wound. McDonald, who also sat on the board of the NYSE Euronext, the giant stock exchange, was 56 years old. In a statement obtained by the Wall Street Journal Monday night, Barclay McFadden III, who called himself a friend of McDonald's family, said McDonald "took his own life," and said the family would have no further comment.

McDonald's apparent suicide came less than one week after Finn M. W. Casperson, the former chairman and CEO of Beneficial Corp. and another prominent financial figure, was found dead from a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head near his own home in Westerly, Rhode Island.