A security guard in Washington, D.C., Wills found tape over the lock on one of the doors in his building. He pulled it off, thinking employees were breaking the rules for easy passage. When he later found the door lock taped again, he called the police. Together, Wills and the police discovered burglars in the offices of the Democratic National Committee. The year was 1972, and the building was the Watergate.
The subsequent scandal over the Republican-sponsored burglars brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon and made every scandal a “-gate”. He later played himself in All the President’s Men, a movie about the burglary and its fallout. Wills died September 27 from a brain tumor. He was 52.