Denny Hecker ally Bill Prohofsky commits suicide with gunshot to the head, police say

To bankruptcy hell and bitter divorce, add suicide. Bill Prohofsky, who was a friend and former in-law of failed auto dealer Denny Hecker, and who was enmeshed in Hecker's seemingly endless financial troubles, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on Thursday, police said.

He was the step father of Hecker's ex-wife, Tamitha. Last week, he was accused in a lawsuit of trying to help Hecker hide $81,000 from creditors, using some of it to pay bills and directing some of it to Hecker's girlfriend, Christi Rowan. He also lived for a time in one of Hecker's vacation homes in Crosslake.

The wounded 71-year-old Minnetonka man was found in his parked silver Volvo late Wednesday morning in a Medina industrial park by a crew cleaning a nearby building, police told the Strib. He was taken to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, where family and friends, including Hecker, were at his side. He died later in the evening.

The once high-flying Hecker is embroiled in a $767 million personal bankruptcy proceeding after his auto dealer empire collapsed last year. He's been ordered to pay $7,500 a month to his estranged wife, Tamitha, whom he's called a "$15-million gold digger." His girlfriend, Rowan, has been ordered to return $425,000 worth of goods to the bankruptcy trustee. And he is under federal indictment, accused of fraudulently obtaining an $80 million loan from Chrysler Financial. He denies the allegations.