Katie Couric's Notebook: Madoff

One of Bernie Madoff's victims was quoted in the New York Post, discussing Mark Madoff's suicide. "It's starts to have elements of a Greek tragedy," he said.

The powerful and wealthy man who built his world on lies and deception has seen it all collapse like a deck of cards. Now, in the saddest turn of events his son is dead.

The story is actually "An American Tragedy," and, as Theodore Dreiser wrote in that novel, "the difficulty lay, not in the deed itself, but in the consequences which followed upon not thinking or not knowing."

Perhaps some of Madoff's family and friends didn't know perhaps some of them just didn't want to think about the implications of what might really be happening.

But ultimately, the consequences of a Ponzi scheme that snowballed into a $65 billion swindle...have been too much for many people to take.

This isn't the first life destroyed by Bernie Madoff, but for him it's the one that hits closest to home.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

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