THE PHOTO OF DAVID CARRADINE'S DEATH

This is a photograph of David Carradine's body by forensics investigators. It was featured on the front page of The Thai Rath newspaper, the original publisher. Another, slightly different version of the photo can be seen at greenstijl.nl. TMZ.com reports a statement by Keith Carradine, David Carradine's brother, saying "The family wants it understood that, per attorney Mark Geragos, any persons, publications or media outlets will be fully prosecuted for invasion of privacy and causing severe emotional distress if the photos are published." Apparently they are under the impression that dead people have privacy rights and that the source of the family's distress is the information about his death rather than the death itself. Or maybe they would rather use their wealth to threaten journalists with the financial consequences of being embroiled in the U.S. legal system than accept Carradine's kinks. Carradine's ex-wife Marina claimed in their divorce trial that he took part in "deviant sexual behavior which was potentially deadly". Another ex-wife of his, Gail Jensen, claims he would take days preparing bondage scenarios for himself and that "he liked to be tied up. And he could tie himself up ..." In spite of this, Geragos explained on Larry King Live that it is likely Carradine was killed in response to investigative work he may have been doing to uncover a secret underworld martial arts society. As a side note, commenter PRIAPISM EROTICAL on TMZ.com believes that David Carradine was making a political statement about the exorbitant suicide rate in China which they say is the real issue here. Some of Mark Geragos' previous clients include Scott Peterson, convicted of killing his pregnant wife; Chris Brown, ex-boyfriend of Rihanna whom he beat badly enough that she couldn't perform at last year's Grammy Awards; and Susan McDougal, who was convicted for multiple counts of fraud in the Whitewater controversy and later pardoned by President Bill Clinton.

DAVID CARRADINE KILLS HIMSELF JERKING OFF, MEDIA MOPS UP

According to media reports, actor David Carradine died in Bangkok last night or this morning at the age of 72. He was found in his hotel closet. While earlier reports from the U.K. mentioned rope tied around his genitals and his neck, the stories have since been sanitized of all mention of his genitalia and the implication of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Compare the following screen captures of the story from bbc.co.uk taken 61 minutes apart:

In fact, there was an intermediate edit between the two versions above that only mentioned the cord being around his neck (Sorry, no screencap.) Compare also the following two versions of this story at telegraph.co.uk, both marked "Published: 3:34PM BST 04 Jun 2009".

Reports in the U.S. media are even shorter on details such as the story at abclocal.go.com, which initially reported Carradine's agent suggesting that he had died of natural causes.

Carradine was best known for his work on the TV series Kung Fu and a number of movies including Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2. He is survived by his wife Annie Bierman and their three children.

UPDATE (16:26 04 June 2009): Commenter friendlyfires on thesuperficial.com makes some interesting points about Carradine's death and says author David Foster Wallace died of auto-erotic asphyxiation and it was covered up as a suicide. UPDATE (19:08 04 June 2009): While most other media outlets are just hiding the details of the incident, Fox News is trying to sell this as a suicide despite all the evidence against it. Who commits suicide half-naked with rope around their dong? UPDATE (04:42 04 June 2009): The Huffington Post has a good article about what happened.

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