James Ransone, the actor best known for playing Ziggy Sobotka on "The Wire" and appearing in several other HBO productions, has died at the age of 46. Ransone died by suicide in Los Angeles on Friday, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner. He is survived by his wife, Jamie McPhee, and their two children.
McPhee shared a fundraiser for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) on her social media profile in the wake of his death. Official records list Ransone's cause of death as hanging, with the location noted as a shed. The medical examiner's office said that the actor's body has been released to his family.
Mental Health, Depression, Killed Ransone
Ransone was best known for his role as Ziggy Sobotka, the troubled son of union leader Frank Sobotka, played by Chris Bauer, during the second season of "The Wire." His performance as the volatile Baltimore dock worker left a lasting impression on fans of the series.
He appeared in a total of 12 episodes in 2003, during a season that focused on the city's struggling port and labor unions.
The critically acclaimed HBO drama ran from 2002 to 2008 and featured an ensemble cast that included Dominic West, Michael Kenneth Williams, John Doman, Idris Elba, Wood Harris, Lance Reddick, Wendell Pierce, Frankie Faison, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., and many others.
Ransone also appeared in several other popular television series, including "Generation Kill," "Treme," and "Bosch." His final TV role came earlier this year, in a Season 2 episode of "Poker Face" that aired in June.
He also built a wide-ranging film career, with roles in movies such as "Prom Night" (2008), "Sinister" (2012), "Sinister 2" (2015), "Tangerine" (2015), "Mr. Right" (2015), "It Chapter Two" (2019), "The Black Phone" (2021), and the upcoming "Black Phone 2" (2025).
In 2021, Ransone publicly shared that he was a survivor of sexual abuse. He said a former tutor, Timothy Rualo, abused him repeatedly over a six-month period in 1992 at his childhood home in Phoenix, Maryland.
Sexual Abuse Got Mental
Ransone chose to make the allegations public by posting a lengthy statement on Instagram, which he said was a message he had sent directly to his alleged abuser. "We did very little math," Ransone recalled.
"The strongest memory I have of the abuse was washing blood and feces out of my sheets after you left. I remember doing this as a 12-year-old because I was too ashamed to tell anyone."
Ransone said the alleged abuse left him carrying what he described as a "lifetime of shame and embarrassment." In his message to Rualo, he wrote that the trauma propelled him to alcoholism and heroin addiction. After getting sober in 2006, Ransone said he finally felt prepared to confront what had happened to him.
He later reported the allegations to Baltimore County police in March 2020. According to an email Ransone shared, a detective informed him that September that prosecutors had decided they had "no interest in pursuing the matter any further."
The Baltimore County State's Attorney's Office ultimately declined to file charges after reviewing the police investigation, according to The Baltimore Sun.
