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Mary Richardson Kennedy found dead

12 years ago

Holy moly... We live close enough to have picked up past stories in the local press, and it seems this gal was struggling with an awful substance abuse problem.

LA Times article

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Comments (9)

awm03
Original Author
12 years ago
NY Post is reporting it was a suicide by hanging. This poor woman, how isolated she must have felt.
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natal
12 years ago
When I read outbuilding that was my first thought. Demons are sometimes hard to overcome.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s estranged wife, Mary, who battled her husband's rumored philandering by turning to alcohol and prescription drugs, hanged herself in a barn on their Westchester estate today, sources told The Post. The 52-year-old mother of four is the latest victim of a family dynasty cursed with tragedies --may have taken her own life because she was haunted by her broken marriage, her friends lamented. "She was deeply troubled, abusing alcohol and prescription meds," a close family friend said. "She had cause. She was used up and tossed away by Bobby. That was awful." from the NYPost.com site linked below. Here is a link that might be useful: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s wife found dead
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Is this thread being "wrapped up"? I agree that it has been very enlightening, but I have only just finished my third CD book, "Nicholas Nickleby", and I am about one third of the way into "The Old Curiosity Shop". What started with the proposal of this thread and the subsequent discussion looks to stretch indefinitely into my reading future. I want to thank everyone for sparking my interest - and I especially what to thank whoever it was who had the idea of general, individual readings of Dickens rather than concentrating on just one Dickens book. To supplement Ackroyd's Dickens bio, I also read Tomalin's. friedag, you are right that different biographers have different perspectives. Like carolyn_ky mentioned, it is obvious that Tomalin's big interest is "the affair" between CD and Ellen Ternan and thus Tomalin's biography is about half the length of Ackroyd's. Maybe that shows some of the differences between male and female biographers, because Ackroyd recounts the affair rather perfunctorily but includes much more detail of other aspects of CD's life. It could be, too, that Tomalin is more attuned to what interests female readers of biographies: relationships, factual and rumored. friedag, Charles Palliser's "The Quincunx" is said to be a Dickens pastiche. New Zealander Lloyd Jones wrote "Mister Pip" - the setting is Papua New Guinea and could be right up your alley! I have not read either of those, but I did read Gaynor Arnold's "Girl in a Blue Dress" and Richard Flanagan's "Wanting", both of which were inspired by CD's unhappy marriage to Catherine. All I can say about them is they are intriguing takes, but I found them quite maddening (angry-making, that is, not crazy-making).
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stinky-gardener
12 years ago
Yes, very sad.
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theroselvr
12 years ago
Very sad. You would think he'd help her out. Her friends knew how bad things were; you would think that she would have gotten a decent settlement in a divorce.

Found 2 decent articles.

RFK Jr.s wife hangs herself * Found in estate barn * Split over his affairs * Booze & pill abuse

Mary Richardson Kennedy Committed Suicide, Report Says
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awm03
Original Author
12 years ago
What's disturbing is, you'd think someone who could afford the best treatments, who had extensive friends/contacts/relatives/cohorts to keep her emotionally afloat, who had four kids & a good brain & talent to boot -- could find some reason to keep going. I suspect she was deeply angry in addition to being depressed. Reading rumors she hanged herself in the "falcon house," an outbuilding he used for his falconry hobby. Will be interesting to see if this is true.

I'm not enamored of the Kennedys, but this story resonates for a number of reasons. I feel so sorry for her.
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texanjana
12 years ago
So very sad and tragic. My heart aches for her children.
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tinam61
12 years ago
Me too texanjana. So many tragedies in that family. Sad that she felt that desperate . . .
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CaroleOH
12 years ago
I agree, such a sad ending for another Kennedy.

I'm sure that there were many attempts to get her cleaned up over the years. He didn't divorce her until 2010 - and I'm sure that was probably a result of her inability to get control over her addictions.

Alcoholism and drug addiction is not something you can make someone overcome. Look at Whitney Houston - she had an entire entourage trying to keep her straight and she kept on doing what she wanted to do.

Sometimes, breaking the ties and moving on from someone addicted is the only way to keep yourself whole. She obviously had some mental illness/depression as well - so sad. Easy to do the what if's after the fact. If you're not living with someone with this disease, it's hard to imagine how it is day to day.

I have a good friend who's daughter is addicted to prescription drugs and alcohol. She is unable to work or function as a responsible adult. She lives with my friend, comes up with all kinds of excuses for illnesses that she needs to go to the ER for treatment - aches, pains, migraines. Drinks like a fish, but you'd never know she's drunk. Been to 3 rehabs, but now she's "straight" and just has some health issues that require pain meds. My friend is 75, and her life has been consumed with worry, her finances ransacked helping her daughter. If she turns her out, she'll live on the street.
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yayagal
12 years ago
My heart goes out to her children. Incredibly sad to think of her so desperate and feeling unable to stay here on earth. May she rest in peace.
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