Philip Marshall was killed in a black operation over confessing to having worked with CIA drug smugglers and the potential exposure of 9/11 secrets. In the background to this, former US National Security Agency Officer Wayne Madsen says the 9/11 investigative author Philip Marshall and his children were killed in a "black ops hit" by the CIA, dismissing the suicide hypothesis. Marshall was afraid of being silenced for his revelations about 9/11, Madsen said, noting that a side door the investigator never used was wide open when his dead body was found. Marshall believed the former US President George Bush had pulled off the 9/11 attack to foment a government coup. In his fourth book, he was supposed to disclose blockbuster information.