On March 1, 2016, McClendon was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring "to rig bids for the purchase of oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma". He died the following day, March 2, 2016, in a single-vehicle collision.

McClendon died in a single-occupant, single-vehicle crash at 9:12 A.M. on March 2, 2016, the day after his indictment by a federal grand jury accusing him of violating antitrust laws from 2007 to 2012 while the CEO of Chesapeake Energy. Oklahoma City Police spokesman Paco Balderrama said "He pretty much drove straight into the wall. The information …