Mary Kennedy Begged RFK for Help Before Suicide

Details of final days revealed
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 9, 2012 9:42 AM CDT
Mary Kennedy Begged RFK for Help Before Suicide
In this Aug. 29, 2009 file photo, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Mary arrive during funeral services for US Senator Edward Kennedy at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston.   (AP Photo/Brian Snyder, Pool, File)

The day before she committed suicide, Mary Richardson Kennedy told estranged husband Robert Kennedy Jr. that "she was sorry for everything," RFK Jr. told police. "She said I was right about everything, and everything was her fault. She then told me she needed me to take care of her." But he couldn't take care of her because, he told the caretaker at Mary's Bedford home, "she doesn't want to help herself," according to what the caretaker told police. The account of Mary's last days comes from investigative records obtained by the New York Daily News and the Journal News.

Mary's caretaker told police she was worried about Mary because she had started staying in bed rather than going to the gym in the morning, and didn't leave her room during the two days before she died. The caretaker says she told Bobby that "something was wrong" with Mary and that she needed help; the papers imply that Bobby turned down the request. After her final phone call with Bobby, Mary called her AA sponsor Shannon White, distraught. The next day, the caretaker called Bobby after she was unable to find Mary in the house. Bobby, in turn, met with the sponsor and expressed his concern; White was the one to find Mary's body. (More Mary Kennedy stories.)

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