He did not, however, resign from the Senate. On June 19, 1954, Senator Hunt shot himself at his desk in his Senate office, using a rifle he apparently brought from home, and died a few hours later in Casualty Hospital. The "New York Times" reported that he acted "in apparent despondency over his health" and left four sealed notes. Just one day before Hunt's suicide, Senator McCarthy had accused an unnamed Senator of "just plain wrong doing". After Hunt's suicide, McCarthy's Senate ally Karl Mundt of South Dakota denied that McCarthy was referring to Hunt. The day after Hunt's suicide, Pearson published his charges about how Republican Senators had threatened Hunt, but described Hunt's motives as complex: "Two weeks ago he went to the hospital for a physical check and announced that he would not run again. It was no secret that he had been having kidney trouble for some time, but I am sure that on top of this, Lester Hunt, a much more sensitive soul than his colleagues realized, just could not bear the thought of having his son's misfortunes become the subject of whispers in his re-election campaign." In private, he confirmed that Hunt had no serious health problem and wrote in his diary that "Unfortunately I am afraid that the morals charge against his son and the experience Hunt suffered was the main factor." Hunt was buried on June 22 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, at Beth El Cemetery following a brief church service in Cheyenne. At the time of his death Hunt was a major in the Army Reserve Corps. On June 24, 1954, acting Wyoming Governor Clifford Joy Rogers appointed Republican Edward D. Crippa to fill the remainder of Hunt's Senate term. On July 4, 1954, the conservative "Washington Times-Herald" reported Buddy Hunt's arrest and conviction from the previous year, with Senator Hunt's death giving the story wider circulation than it had previously received. On July 9, Blick signed an affidavit exonerating Bridges and Welker of pressuring him, but his decision to prosecute Buddy Hunt under circumstances which did not normally warrant prosecution remained unexplained. Following the election, on November 9, 1954, the Senate eulogized its members who had died recently and Senator Bridges called Hunt "a man who demonstrated the best qualities of an American. He was loyal and he served well". Hunt's cousin, William M. Spencer, president of the North American Car Corporation in Chicago, wrote Welker after learning he had eulogized Hunt: Democrat Joseph C. O'Mahoney won Hunt's Senate seat in the November 1954 election, defeating Republican nominee William Henry Harrison III.