In the wake of Robert Carradine’s suicide, it was not the first tragedy that struck the Carradine family.
Prior to him, the actor’s half-brother, David Carradine, also wound up dead in Bangkok’s Swissotel Nai Lert Park Hotel — where he was shooting for the movie Stretch — under mysterious circumstances.
A report in ABC News at the time stated he had a “cord wrapped around his neck and genitals”.
Police Lt Gen. Worapong Chewprecha, who provided the brief on the case, further told the network, “The two ropes were tied together. It is unclear whether he committed suicide or not or he died of suffocation or heart failure.”
Officials believed the cause of David’s death at the time may have been auto-erotic asphyxiation, which is “the practice of cutting off one’s air supply to heighten sexual pleasure.”
Later, multiple autopsies confirmed it, ABC News reported.
Then came the twist
Shocked by David’s death, his family hired a forensic expert named Dr Michael Baden. His findings, however, were at odds with the official investigation.
He stated the actor’s death was not a suicide. “The autopsy findings and the evidence thus far available demonstrate that Mr Carradine’s death was not the result of suicide.”
According to The Guardian, the expert further added that “his report was consistent with the findings of the Thai doctor who performed the first autopsy, who also said Carradine had died from asphyxiation.”
But Baden insisted it was unclear if the actor’s death was murder or an accident.
Nonetheless, David’s traumatic death triggered what his family describes as mental health struggles, including a bipolar disorder diagnosis in his half-brother Robert, which eventually led him to take his life on Feb 23. He was 71.
