David A. Kennedy

David Anthony Kennedy (born June 15, 1955 in Washington, DC , † April 25, 1984 in Palm Beach , Florida ) was the fourth of the eleven children of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel .

Life

As a 13-year-old David witnessed the murder of his father, who had saved him from drowning hours earlier, on television, which traumatized him. In 1973 he broke a vertebra in a car accident caused by his brother Joseph Patrick Kennedy II , whose girlfriend Pamela Kelley suffered from paraplegia . As a result, he had to take pain reliever medication, which he became addicted to. He then started using drugs such as heroin .

Kennedy was intelligent and gifted as a journalist. In 1974 he started as a volunteer at a newspaper and studied at Harvard , but could no longer finish his studies. He met up with a few women and began dating actress Rachel Ward . In 1976 he began to suffer from the effects of his drug use, he was hospitalized for an overdose, and in 1978 a second time. He was being treated for bacterial endocarditis , a common complication of intravenous addiction. In 1979 he moved to New York .

Kennedy's problem came to light when he was attacked and robbed in Harlem while trying to buy heroin. This was followed by rehab in Sacramento , where he lived under the supervision of a drug expert. In the early 1980s his life calmed down a bit, he lived drug-free and occasionally got work through family contacts. He also wanted to continue studying at Harvard, but after a semester he relapsed. He then moved to Boston to live with his girlfriend Paula Sculley, a photographer, and began another rehab in 1984 .

In April he flew to his family in Palm Beach, Florida. He stayed at the Brazilian Court Hotel, where he moved into room 107 and partied for a few days. When he didn't answer, some family members asked the staff to look. It found him dead on the floor with an overdose of cocaine , demerol, and mellaril . He was buried in Holyhood Cemetery, Brookline .

Web links

• David A. Kennedy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Lance Morrow, Hays Gorey, Joseph N. Boyce: The One Caught in the Undertow In: Time . May 7, 1984.