David Carradine dead, circumstances strange

Posted by Greg Laden on June 4, 2009
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Kill Bill and Kung Fu star David Carradine has been found dead in a Bangkok hotel room on Thursday.

Thai police told the BBC the 72-year-old was found by a hotel maid sitting in a wardrobe with a cord around his neck and other parts of his body.

There is no official determination, but the word is that he committed suicide.

Details as BBC

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Comments

  1. #1 Jason Thibeault
    June 4, 2009

    Gak!!

    I don’t like the implications of the “other parts of his body” bit… brings his death into the realm of possible fetishism or autoerotica rather than suicide.

  2. #2 Rev. BigDumbChimp
    June 4, 2009

    um

    humm

    Thai police told the BBC the 72-year-old was found by a hotel maid sitting in a wardrobe with a cord around his neck and other parts of his body.

    uh

  3. #3 Stephanie Z
    June 4, 2009

    Jason, if it makes you feel better, it also raises the possibility that he was working to be certain he couldn’t back out of it. A hotel wardrobe is not the world’s most lethal location. Chances are it was slow and ugly, even for suicide.

  4. #4 Jason Thibeault
    June 4, 2009

    I get the feeling I wasn’t clear on my being bothered by this. It’s not that fetishism or autoeroticism bugs me. Far from it. It’s that the wording of the sentence lays bare that possibility, and you’d think that kind of thing should be private (f’r instance, I’d rather not have known how that INXS guy died). Do the investigation, find out he was trying to get off, rule his death an accident, misadventure, whatever. Don’t tell everyone it’s a suicide, or even imply it, before you know, especially where the circumstances are so… unusual. The wording kind of brings to mind an image of the poor old guy all tangled up in this cord, and it doesn’t even say what kind of cord it was.

    Then again, if it WAS suicide, that bugs me too, if for no other reason than that I always thought highly of him, and he seemed pretty close to the end of his run on this mortal coil anyway.

  5. #5 will shetterly
    June 4, 2009

    Choosing to die may be deserving of respect. Strangulation can be very quick, and it’s possible he tied his hands to prevent himself from doing something involuntary.

    That said, I think the most honorable form of suicide is starvation. Still, Carradine might’ve had a good reason to want something faster–in his case (rich and famous), if he’d chosen starvation, the odds of being found and force-fed are much greater.

  6. #6 Paul
    June 5, 2009

    Ok now they are making t-shirts of him, http://www.beastwear.se/David_Carradine.391?lang=en

  7. #7 grasshopper
    June 9, 2009

    so many Kung Fu fans (such as myself) wanted to grow up to be like David Carradine

  8. #8 grasshopper
    June 9, 2009

    so many Kung Fu fans (such as myself) wanted to grow up to be like David Carradine

  9. #9 Amanda
    May 12, 2010

    I think the new book, “David Carradine: The Eye of My Tornado” might talk about Carradine’s unusual death.