Pioneering journalist Hunter S. Thompson undoubtedly died by suicide and suicide alone, Colorado authorities have concluded after his widow cried foul play and sparked a divisive probe into his 2005 loss of life.
“All speculative theories couldn’t be substantiated,” the Colorado Bureau of Investigation wrote in a Jan. 23 report that lastly closed the case, in accordance with the New York Occasions.
“The physique was not moved or ‘staged’ after loss of life,” the report stated. “Thompson suffered from important melancholy and continual ache.”
The Gonzo Godfather — well-known for unhinged tomes akin to “Worry and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “Songs of the Doomed” — died of a gunshot to the pinnacle within the kitchen-office of his Aspen residence at age 67, after years of sharing plans for a self-inflicted demise with family and friends.
However Thompson’s spouse Anita, whom he married two years earlier than his loss of life recommended one thing sinister was afoot from the get-go concerning the loss of life of the person whose identify is now synonymous with Gonzo journalism, or first-person participatory reporting.
She lastly satisfied CBI to re-investigate Thompson’s loss of life in September after claiming his son and son’s spouse had been one way or the other concerned and made the loss of life “appear to be a suicide.”
Investigators spent months re-examining the previous Rolling Stone journo’s loss of life, interviewing quite a few individuals concerned within the authentic crime scene and going as far as to review bullet trajectory within the kitchen had been Thompson’s physique was discovered fallen over his typewriter.
In the long run, nothing was discovered the assist Anita’s concept that her husband had been both murdered by his household or assisted within the suicide.
“Whereas we’ve got at all times believed the unique investigation was performed correctly, we acknowledged the significance of an unbiased evaluation for the Thompson household,” Pitkin County Sheriff Michael Buglione stated in a press release.
Anita has appeared to take the conclusions in stride, saying her personal assertion that she was “grateful for the sort and thorough work executed by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation of their evaluation of this case.
“This enables all of us who cherished Hunter to maneuver ahead with a clear conscience,” she stated.
However her seek for solutions brought on a rift within the household, with Thompson’s son Juan left baffled by her years-long campaign.
“I have no idea why she raised this. And I can’t think about that the CBI would discover something to behave on,” Juan, 61, beforehand advised the Occasions. “There’s nothing new to learn about Hunter’s precise loss of life.”
Juan was within the subsequent room when his father killed himself and was the one who discovered the physique, whereas Anita was on the telephone with Thompson moments earlier than the deadly gunshot was fired.
And Juan himself fired a shotgun within the air to honor his father earlier than police arrived to research the scene — which some have recommended might have contaminated gunshot residue proof on the scene.
Nonetheless, detectives on the second go-around got here to the identical conclusion they reached greater than 20 years in the past: Thompson died by suicide.
“CBI’s conclusions reaffirm the unique findings and, we hope, present reassurance and readability,” Sheriff Buglione stated.
