Death a new tragedy for Kennedys

Press, 27 April 1984, Page 6

Death a new tragedy for Kennedys

NZPA-Reuter Palm Beach David Kennedy, the drugtroubled son of the late Senator Robert Kennedy, was found dead in a hotel in Palm Beach, a fashionable Florida resort, yesterday, in the latest tragedy to befall the Kennedy family. The police said that the body of Mr Kennedy, who was 28, had been found in a room by an employee shortly before noon (local time). The police said that there had been no signs of foul play and the cause of death was not known. Mr Kennedy, a Harvard University drop-out, had been visiting his grandmother, Rose, who has a home near the 117-room hotel where the police said that Mr Kennedy was registered. The police said that no drug paraphernalia had been found in the room. But according to numerous published reports, Mr Kennedy had been fighting a battle

with drugs that began shortly after the assassination of his father in 1968. In Washington his uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy, issued a statement saying, “This is a very difficult time for all the members of our family, including David’s mother, Ethel, and his brothers and sisters, who tried so hard to help in recent years. All of us loved him very much. “With trust in God, we all pray that David has finally found the peace that he did not find in life.” Mr Kennedy’s death was the latest in a series of tragedies to strike the family of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. Three of thenfour sons and one of their five daughters were killed. Joseph Kennedy, jun., the eldest of the sons, was killed in World War 11. President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Robert Kennedy, a New* York senator and

former Attorney-General, was shot dead in Los Angeles. The youngest son, Edward, survived a nearfatal plane crash. One of the five Kennedy daughters, Rosemary, was born mentally retarded and another, Kathleen, died in a plane crash in 1948. David was the fourth of the 11 children of Robert and Ethel Kennedy. In 1979 he was robbed at a seedy Harlem hotel that the police said was used by heroin addicts. After the mugging he entered hospital for treatment of bacterial endocarditis, an inflammation of the heart lining which can be caused by using dirty needles to inject drugs. An article in “Playboy” magazine said that Mr Kennedy took the death of his father hard because there was a special bond between them. His experimentation with drugs had grown to the point where he was injecting himself with heroWi regularly.