AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Frank Wills, the Watergate security guard who discovered the 1972 break-in that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation, is dead at 52.

A University Hospital spokeswoman says Wills died Wednesday, but the hospital did not give the cause of death. Friends of the family told The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle that he suffered a brain tumor and had been ill for several months.

Though he had spent the years since the break-in in relative obscurity, Wills' discovery on the midnight shift at the Washington, D.C., hotel-office complex thrust him briefly into the spotlight. He later played himself in a movie about the scandal, "All the President's Men."

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