David Kellermann

David Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer of money-losing mortgage giant Freddie Mac was found dead at his home Wednesday morning in what police said was an apparent suicide. The Fairfax County police responded to a 911-call at 4:48 a.m. at the suburban Virginia home Kellermann shared with his wife. The police would not release the cause of death or say if a suicide note was found.

Paul Unger, who lives across the street from the Kellermanns, called the family a "solid, salt-of-the-earth kind of family" that hosted the neighborhood's Halloween party. "He was just a nice guy ... You cannot imagine what kind of pressures he must have been under," Unger said. Kellermann worked for Freddie Mac for the past 16 years and was named acting chief financial officer last September when the government seized control of the company to keep it from failing. Freddie Mac lost more than $50 billion last year, and the government has pumped in $45 billion to keep the company afloat.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department have been questioning executives about Freddie’s accounting practices, according to company filings. McLean, Virginia-based Freddie and Washington-based Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance companies seized last year by U.S. regulators, reported in September that they were under investigation. “Freddie Mac knows of no connection between this terrible personal tragedy and the ongoing regulatory inquiries discussed in our SEC filings,” said Doug Duvall, a company spokesman.