More on Kenny Boy, Rest in Purgatory
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Disgraced boss Ken Lay dies at luxury ski chalet The son of a preacher from a small town in Missouri, Lay enjoyed a meteoric rise to the heights of American society. He was nicknamed “Kenny boy” by President Bush and lived a lavish lifestyle with more than a dozen homes and a personal wealth of more than $400m.The company's collapse left 21,000 people jobless and Lay became the butt of hatred and of jokes - one ex-employee did a roaring trade in t-shirts with slogans such as “I got Lay'd by Enron”.
Former employees yesterday suggested there was some irony in the venue of Lay's death - a luxurious chalet in one of America's most expensive resorts. In Houston, callers to radio stations expressed outrage that he had been allowed to continue enjoying such conditions. Mimi Schwartz, co-author of Power Failure, a book about the demise of Enron, said there was still a great deal of anger in Houston: “People wanted to see the end of the story. The narrative people were buying into was that the story would end with Ken Lay being led away in handcuffs and shackles.”
