CARRADINE'S DEATH SUICIDE OR MURDER?

The mysterious death of 72-year-old actor David Carradine at the luxury Swissitel Nai Lert Park hotel in Bangkok Thursday June 5th becomes more mysterious and causes more questions to be raised.

The hotel is diagonally opposite a condo I resided in for two years and is adjacent to a canal that we have often written about in the past. The British and Swiss Embassy's are also located on the block.

Various news reports note that the Thai police's thinking is that Carradine died as a result of masturbation or as they say a sex game gone wrong. A hotel maid found him in his room in the closet with his hands tied behind his back. A rope from the drapes was tied together around his neck and genitals. The police say it was a suicide.

More conflicting evidence was a footprint found on the bed did not match Carradine's and there was no suicide note. The actor's family, friends and business associates say that Carradine wouldn't have committed suicide. Carradine's agent Chuck Binder said on the Larry King show that he believes his client was murdered. Binder strongly emphasized that his client's career was on an upswing. He noted that Carradine had three films waiting for him to do after his filming in Bangkok was completed.

Carradine's family wanted the FBI to investigate the case. It was announced on Channel News Asia Sunday June 7th that the Thai police said there was no need for an FBI investigation.

Carradine checked into the hotel May 31st to prepare for acting in the film Stretch. He had been known to join the film crew for dinner. The crew noticed his absence when going out to dinner on June 3, but assumed he was simply taking the night off. His body was found the following day.

Throughout his career the Carradine starred in over 100 films. He was a student of martial arts and he starred in to successful TV series Kung Fu in the United States. The show aired between 1972 and 1975. His most recent success is starring in the two-part martial arts Kill Bill films directed by Quentin Tarantino. His career was going strong and his acting friends say there was no reason for him to commit suicide.

Another strange twist to the case is that Khunying Pornthip Rojanasunand, a Thai forensic pathologist and Director of Central Institute of Forensic Science, stated the incident met four of the criteria for accidental death involving autoerotic asphyxiation.

In the past Porntip has accused the Thai police of hiding evidence or having it disappear. The 2005 National Geographic documentary Crime Scene Bangkok (2004) tells her life story and covers her work in Phang Nga after the tsunami and her battle with the police.

During the anti-drug campaign by the government of Thaksin Shinawatra in early 2003, more than 1,000 people vanished or were killed; Pornthip has shown that several of these deaths were caused by police.

Thai Police Lieutenant General Worapong Chewprecha, Commander of the Metropolitan Police, remarked that the closed circuit television installed within the hotel supported the theory that no other persons were involved with the death. The actor's body was returned to the United States and the investigation will continue with more questions being raised.

Carradine's acting credits include starring on Broadway in the play The Royal Hunt of the Sun, for which he won a Theatre World Award for Best Debut Performance in 1965. The previously mentioned role as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s television series Kung Fu and later starred in the 1990s spin-off Kung Fu: The Legend Continues as the grandson of his original character.

In films, he starred as 'Big' Bill Shelly in Martin Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha (1972), folksinger Woody Guthrie in Bound for Glory (1976), Abel Rosenberg in Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg (1977), and as Bill in Tarantino's Kill Bill, Volumes 1 and 2 (released in 2003 and 2004, respectively).

Other notable roles included the lead in Shane (the 1966 television series based upon the 1949 novel of the same name) and a gunslinger in Taggart, a 1964 western film based on a novel by Louis L'Amour.

More recently, he portrayed Tempus, a powerful demon with the ability to manipulate time, on the popular television series Charmed, as well as Conrad in the television series Alias. Carradine twice played a supernatural being with the power to control time: "Tempus" on Charmed and "Clockwork" on Danny Phantom.

Carradine appeared in an episode of the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire (in which his half-brother Robert was a series regular), and also provided his voice for the King of the Hill episode, Returning Japanese, in which he voiced the character of Hank's Japanese half-brother. He provided the voice for Lo Pei, the ancient warrior who was responsible for Shendu's petrification in the animated series Jackie Chan Adventures.

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