Ken Lay died this morning, six weeks after being convicted of fraud and sentenced to what was essentially the rest of his life in prison.

The rest of his life wasn't long enough for him to serve even a single day.

Lay wasn't known to be in poor health, but its at least a possibility that the trauma of contemplating spending the rest of his life in prison aggravated whatever problems he was suffering from.

Born into humble circumstances, Lay transformed a small pipeline company into an industry powerhouse and accumulated a reported 100 million fortune, only to see it, and his reputation completely destroyed by accounting irregularities and a maelstrom of bad press. Consider the following subtlety:

Enron became the most infamous financial meltdown in decades, as images were beamed around the globe of thousands of sacked employees carrying their possessions past the company's crooked "E" logo outside its gleaming office tower in downtown Houston.

The magnitude of his fall was truly awe-inspiring. Not only did Lay destroy his reputation and end up a convicted felon, but he beggared and shamed his family. Life so seldom ends up like a fairy tale.