Mark Mayfield, Mississippi Tea Party leader who was arrested in connection with taking photos of U.S. Senator Thad Cochran's wife in her nursing home, was found dead Friday in a possible suicide. 

Mayfield, 58, was vice chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party and a Central Mississippi Tea Party chairperson, according to Reuters. He was found dead from a gunshot wound.

"We found him at his home with a gunshot wound in his head. We found him deceased there. We are working this currently as a suicide because all of the indications, it appears to be suicide, but we still got some things to look into," Ridgeland, Mississippi, Police Chief Jimmy Houston told CNN.

According to Houston, Mayfield left a suicide note, which is currently being verified. 

Mayfield is survived by his wife and two children.  

"This is a terrible tragedy that shouldn't have happened," Mayfield's lawyer John Reeves told Reuters.

Reeves said the criminal case against Mayfield was still in its early stages. Mayfield is one of three men who were arrested last month for conspiring with a blogger to take photos of Cochran's wife, who is bedridden in a nursing home, for use in a political video against Cochran. 

He was allegedly being paid by a blogger and supporter of conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel's campaign to get an image of Cochran's wife, who has severe dementia and has lived in a nursing home for the past 14 years. However, McDaniel's campaign denied being connected to the scandal. The incident occurred during a bitter primary fight for the Republican Senate seat between Cochran and McDaniel. 

Cochran, a veteran senator, beat McDaniel in the primary runoff Tuesday for the Republican nomination. While McDaniel won by a very slim margin in the June 3 primary, neither man cracked 50 percent of the vote, so the contest had the runoff Tuesday. Cochran won the runoff by less than 7,000 votes. Cochran was buoyed by the support of African American Democrats, who were aggressively courted by pro-Cochran supporters. 

Cochran struck a major blow to the re-emerging Tea Party movement with his victory, and is now the favorite to win in November against Travis Childers, a Democratic former congressman, USA Today reported.

Cochran hailed his supporters after his victory Tuesday night.

"It's a group effort," Cochran said. "We all have a right to be proud of our state tonight."

McDaniel tried to paint Cochran as a weak conservative and claimed that he increased the country's budget deficit when he was on the Appropriations Committee. McDaniel was supported by the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund, two conservative groups that aim to defeat incumbents from the GOP establishment. He was also boosted by the support for Dave Brat, a Tea Party newcomer in Virginia who defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

However, the recent re-emergence of the Tea Party in certain states was not enough to lead McDaniel to primary victory.

After his loss Tuesday night, McDaniel told his supporters that he would "never stop fighting" for his conservative beliefs.

"There is something a bit unusual about a Republican primary that is decided by liberal Democrats," McDaniel later posted on Twitter.

Cochran, who is a former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, won over a number of Democrats in the conservative state by presenting evidence of his success in acquiring federal dollars to boost the economically weak state. He was also boosted by a U.S. Chamber of Commerce ad supporting his campaign that featured former NFL quarterback Brett Favre, in addition to support from conservative bigwigs like Sen. John McCain.