The Great Carradine Caper
Posted by sideshowBOB | Blog, Reader Submissions | Posted on June 10th, 2009
Death sucks – so I am not writing about this to mock death but the zooish nature of this ordeal is just too juicy to pass up. The papers in the states somehow act like the evil metropolis of Bangkok took their beloved star from Hollywood and sent him on his way to never never land. What the fuck? No offense folks I thought this guy was cool and all but he was also a little messed up. His first wive gave testimony about his weird deviant behavior and listed that as a cause for divorce. So he was known to be a little messed up but who cares right – as long as it does not go public.
That’s the rub though right? Suddenly the guy is found dead, strung up in a weird way, naked and in a closet. On top of that we are not even talking a posh hotel or even a big room. You can see it was just a normal room in a run of the mill hotel. The reason I mention that is one would think if he was such the dude he would be in some big ass suite somewhere rather than a normal tourist room.
What cracks me up is the goons in the US, the family and the handlers. The first thing they did is bad mouth Thailand, the hotel, the police and the investigation itself. Well anyone who knows Asia or Thailand knows that this is exactly the wrong way to deal with this. Before you even get involved you publicly berate people you don’t even know in another country who are going to control the whole situation whether you like it or not. Can you say you fucked up? Well you did. Thailand is going to stick it to them- their little revenge. They didn’t make this problem – freak boy did and he left it on Thailand’s doorstep.
It is quite possible he accidentally killed himself while trying to get off. If so then well – that’s it. That will be his legacy and unfortunately so will the photos. One could argue all day long the photos should not have been released but photos of death and accidents are in Thai papers all the time. Nothing to do with David or the fact he was a celebrity – it just makes it juicier. If they had a normal guest tied up like that and found dead it would have hit the paper just the same. The idea that Thai Rath will actually see any court time over this is laughable in my opinion. So here are cheesy sites like FameSpy trying to point to the craziness of all this and actually think Thai Rath might do time over this. Please.
Oh – BTW – here is the autopsy photo. Twisted. Who let that out? You and I both know that someone is being paid for these photos and that is just the Thai way and the more the US bitches about this the more the Thai’s will publish in my opinion. PostChronicle seems to be pointing to the photos and discussing the impact of it all as well.
Maybe, just maybe, there is more to this all. Maybe he was killed? Somehow I don’t buy it but I could see that he was with someone who was assisting him and once he died that person did not know what to do. Given it could have been a high paid escort or even another local celebrity one could assume that that person is connected enough to get out of the situation. We all know there are celebs here who take money to mix it up with other rich people or celebs. So imagine this girl, assuming it is, suddenly has a dead celebrity John on her hands. What would she do? Call the front desk and ask for room service. Hell no. She is going to call that head of police or military general or politician she knows and ask for help. They will get her out, clear cameras, clear witnesses and so on. It only take money folks. Then suddenly David looks like he was alone and just doing freaky things. Sucks to go out like that but not much one can do about it now.
Crazy shit and I am wondering if we will ever know the truth but the more the US folks scream the deeper they will sink into the Thai quicksand. Sure the US will get to assist or follow the investigation but I am sure at the end of the day that does not mean much.
Thoughts?
52 Responses to “The Great Carradine Caper”
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Translator
Internet drivel is that the Thai rags (written in Thai) are talking about links to a katoey. Have you heard any buzz on that in Bkk, or does that appear to be BS? The girls get their hair done by them, so if there was something to it, it would leak by now one would think.
View all comments by PB
But the point is that the circulation, not to say publication of all these photos makes Thais look like primitive bastards who lack any sense of decency, which of course by and large they are.
I’m not even sure the photo allegedly taken in the room is genuine. I stayed there years ago when it was the Hilton and, unless the new operators have redesigned the interior completely and cut every room down to half its prior size, there’s just no way that photograph was taken in a room in that hotel.
To pass off the publication of the photos in a major Thai daily, not a supermarket tabloid, by saying ‘that’s just the Thai way’ makes me think you may have been here a little too long, my friend. It’s the act of brutal, vile, and uncivilized people, and the savages deserve all the shit anyone wants to dump on them for it.
View all comments by OldAsiaHand
Because of this, now the Hollywood elite and FBI will get a schooling in Thai Politics. If the FBI does come over to ‘assist’ or ‘tag along’ I have just a bit of advice for them if they really want the truth….
Bring Cash, and lots of it, as the truth here comes at an exponentially higher cost than fee for hiding it.
View all comments by I Phukit
He was a “B” movie actor that was ate up with his own press releases. The reason that the family is bitching is because they won’t make any money off of him again and maybe the insurance will not pay if it is deemed suicide. In other words, he is no longer marketable. Your correct about one thing for sure, if he was such a high powered actor what the hell was he doing in that hotel, why not up the street at the 5 star? Either way, he’s gone and in 3 weeks no one will know his name unless it’s some muckraker in Hollywood that brings it up.
Still on lockdown, getting cabin fever, fading fast!!!!
View all comments by THE MAN
so publishing a pixelated picture of a dead guy in a hotel is a prime example of a cultures primitive nature. i wonder what people would think of the country that gave the world rotten.com, 2girls1cup.com, ogrish or the faces of death video collection.
View all comments by UnCochinoWetback
but it is a five-star hotel:
“Swissotel Nai Lert Park, Bangkok is a five-star hotel nestled amidst a luxuriant, sprawling garden estate in the very heart of the city’s central business and diplomatic district.”
more importantly, is that a rope around his neck and hanging down his chest or a surgical scar? looks like a scar.
View all comments by generous sponsor
Regardless of the person involved this type of reporting is one area where the Thai newspapers could do themselves a favour and exercise some of that famous self censorship that they apply elsewhere in their reporting. I’d rather be practicing my thai reading about Aum’s (from Mia Luang) latest conquest rather the sexual habits of an old b grade American actor, that’s for sure!!!!
While I think OAH is perhaps being a little harsh with his statements, I do agree with the gist of what he is saying.
@THE MAN, break down that door pal…..
View all comments by spats
pb – the katoey buzz was on day one but nothing seems to be concrete
oah – that is not what I said. what i said is, whether or not it is good or bad, they have done this before.
santika
dude hanging from the bridge
everyone knew they would do it with this – the family are still idiots for going about it the way they did.
I think u are trying to read something into what I said that is not there.
gs – is not that the autopsy zipper from when they open him up. this looks like after they zipped him back up.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
Yea, DC sounded like a sexual deviant. Sounds like more US Taxpayer money being wasted. Is this part of the Obama stimulus plan, part 2?
FBI Agents, after you complete your 2 hour investigation, enjoy your remaining 13 days and 22 hours at Lolita’s, Tulip and Soi Cowboy.
View all comments by Bubba
The dude is dead…. let it rest please. Enough…..No one will ever fully know the “truth” about it.
It is a Bangkok crime situation… Nothing will get solved since no one wants to investigate. Dieing in Bangkok… one should expect such…
There is zero news anymore in the US about this incident, Sad, but it only was only an “incident”.
Pass the beer nuts….
View all comments by John Brown
He’s not a big star. He’s a jobbing “face” who will do a week or two on a movie for around a $100,000k a pop. He’ll get put up at a decent hotel suite, not the best. Business class plane ticket, not first class.
OAH; I imagine he’d be put up in a smaller suite and the bedroom portion of those suites are usually tiny. Cops haven’t denied the photos are real – no reason to doubt them.
View all comments by Poodle
i know . i thought that was funny . americans screaming and yelling and holding their breath and then threatening lawsuits and to sick the FBI on the locals .
sure the feds enjoyed being dragged into this sordid affair .
and mark geragos (!) ; give me a break . how fast are the “tell all” book and straight to DVD movie gonna’ hit the streets ?
is OAH losing it ? i mean , ur supposed to publish those photos right ? that’s the whole idea .
View all comments by jack dawson
Is it just me or doesn’t this all sound eerily similar to a John Burdett novel ?
American found murdered in hoter room – check
Suspected murdering ladyboys – check
Bungling police – check
FBI on the sidelines – check
We just need the yaabaa crazed snakes, an authentic teak thai house in the middle of the koh san road, oh! and perhaps some menacing but really quite nice muslins from the south to add to the intrigue.
For my money; Burdett dunnit in the hotel room with the rope.
View all comments by WarCorrespondentDave
can anyone explain the notion of tying a rope on your knob, around your throat, and pulling it. i dont quite understand i must say.
the notion of having to, or desiring to have a wank, whilst in Thailand…is very very strange indeed.
View all comments by Maz
Maz ..perhaps he was trying to pull his head down, or his dick up, to give himself a blowjob ? thats about as sensible as any reason !
SSB …”everyone knew they would do it with this ”
Everyone who has been too long in Thailand perhaps, but back in the “civilized” world you would not expect such photos to be published. If the family knew nothing about the Thai media then it’s not surprising they reacted the way they did.
I’m with OAH, if you say ‘that’s just the Thai way’, mai pen rai, then sorry, it’s pretty callous on your part too. Maybe you did n’t mean it to be, but thats the way it reads.
View all comments by Mike
I think they should publish more nudity and dead people (what a nice mix) in the Western media. I wonder why no one thinks of that? The Thai media lead us the way to the light
And wanking in Bangkok is really for losers. Still, I liked DC, at least he left in a very special way. I didnt want to say “with style”, seems debatable.
View all comments by Carnage
I have read that when guys are hanged they spontaneously ejaculate. Don’t know why I just read it somewhere. So I guess people who auto-asphyxiate are trying to reproduce that without the dying part. Or maybe they just want to die happy.
Problem with all kinks is that you keep pushing it further and further. For example, getting blown off by a Katoey to being anally gang-banged by a bunch of builders in a London railway station. I think that was a good example?
View all comments by Poodle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_erection
View all comments by Poodle
aren’t there easier ways to “ejaculate” ?
View all comments by jack dawson
shit poodle…i had passed thought on the former, but dont like the london tube station repercussions!! think il put that thought to the far corners of my mind then.
and dont anyone say they havent thought it!!
View all comments by Maz
Two things. First, while the family has been ‘blaming Thailand’ I haven’t seen anything in the press that takes that tone. Maybe I’ve been reading the wrong press, but I haven’t read it.
Second, about the FBI/CIA getting a ‘lesson in Thai politics’ or a ‘lesson in Thai policing’ well, c’mon guys. The CIA has been working hand in glove with the Thai military and police since (at least) the late 50′s. Some of the first secret ‘rendition prisons’ were in Thailand, covert and overt operations against Laos and the North Vietnamese were run out of the kingdom, and every spook in central Asia tried to take his vacations and plan as many meetings as possible in BKK for all of the obvious reasons. I’m sure they have contacts as good as anyone other than Al Davis himself, and if they want to cash any chits they can. I don’t suspect they give a fuck about a perving second tier actor, but who knows.
View all comments by Scampering Jack Wilshere
Yeah SSB you are right when you say that is the ‘autopsy zipper’. I’ve seen post-mortem snaps a coulple of times in my line of work and believe they are not pretty. They skin the carcass then ‘zip’ it back up again.
Poodle, Carradine was not Cary Grant or anything. But anybody familar with kung fu or B movies/pulp TV will know him and he’s been knocking around long enough to afford a better hotel room.
The thing about the story is for a typical Western reader it has every sordid signifier you could ask for. Auto erotic asphyxiation, check. Cock out, check. Wig on his head and suspenders on, check. Bangkok hotel room, check.
I love Thailand but lets face it – Bangkok deserves its sleazy reputation. Every male traveller in the know goes there for the women – they might stay for different reasons – but thats the initial pull. And there’s so much driftwood there, it just lends itself to sleaze. Plus you got the stench from the pavement and the neon and kathoey and the heat. Sleazy. But in a good, man’s playground kinf of way.
View all comments by milo
SJW,
Spot on. Lessons on Thai Politics etc due to washed up actor….Just a load of tosh. Not exactly Michael Hutchence is he?
View all comments by Kalon Man
wcd – it does actually. I mean really – this is better than anything one could make up
mike – once again why am I being judged on what thailand would do. I repeat – look at santika. photos the next day. due hanging from bridge – photos the next day. so – given he is a movie star, was in bkk and went out they way he did – it would not be hard to deduce that photos would exist. Do I agree with it – no. How does on compare this to the civilized world given all that goes on. And when was the last time civilized people were into the shit that DC was?
milo – cool. I did not know what to call it. rest of your stuff is spot on.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
Very interesting post, mistah.
View all comments by Katechon
@Poodle – “OAH; I imagine he’d be put up in a smaller suite and the bedroom portion of those suites are usually tiny. Cops haven’t denied the photos are real – no reason to doubt them.”
Good point. That might well be the explanation. Still, that bedroom seems awfully small, even for a suite’s bedroom. Looks like you’ve damn near got to turn sideways to get between the bed and the closet.
View all comments by OldAsiaHand
oah – that is y u have to rule out the ladyboy theory – they would not fit in the room. must have been a few isaan spinners.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
mike what do you mean civilized world? i think you really mean sanitized world. You can’t think for a second that the family did not know just how bent this guy was. It’s about time America woke up to the fact that the world isn’t sugar and spice and everything nice.They should start showing Americans just what really goes on.
View all comments by THE MAN
off topic but have any of you G Club chaps checked out this site?
http://www.sungsunclub.com/home.php
View all comments by MSB
Um, the Nam Lert Park is pretty posh by my standards.
I was talking to a working girl last night, and the buzz among Isaan’s finest is that he was not alone in the room…
View all comments by Alan Smith
There are two different perspectives on this story, and they are polar opposites; as ssB says, this situation gave Thailand a bad image in the US.
Meanwhile, according to AsianSweetheart: …
“I think this kind of story is very bad for the image of farang in Thailand. I have mentioned a number of times before that many Thai people only see farang in tourist areas doing bad stuff or in villages married to bar girls or in the news in strange stories like this one. They never see farang in normal life situations. So what can they think, that all farang are like what they see. I give up already when people ask me because I always say “they aren’t all like that” and I have to say that so many times.”
This is from her latest blog post.
I find it very ironic. No one wins.
View all comments by Julian
So DC was a sexual deviant?
Look in the mirror guys….
View all comments by ziggypop
Right Ziggypop, I do. Every day.
What I see in that mirror IS deviant and truly repugnant to citizens of a bizarre and murderous Western culture has been floriating into full fester since well before I moved here to Thailand.
Regular return visits there serve only to confirm a generous measure existential good faith in the shameless boasts that follow.
In the mirror you mention:
I see the face if an over-sixties working professional (own hair, own teeth) with no health or quality of life issues.
Yesterday he had choices of getting laid either at home from his primary-care-giver whom he still finds solidly attractive.
A second opportunity from a tall, thin, sexy, gorgeous, brainy, thirty-ish financial services professional presented itself when SHE took HIS number.
Later covered with girls, at a decidedly low-brow but immensely entertaining Suttisan venue, he enjoyed the early part of the evening fending off offers of sexual congress from hot native farmgirls.
Later, in a second after dark venue that thrives alongside other similar large suburban establishments which from the outside seem to specialize in Xmas decorations and the latest LED lighting technology he enjoyed the endless attentions of a series of beautiful Thai women trained by their culture and necessity to amuse men.
Any of these factors, including simply that it was a Wednesday night, separates him from the curve.
The sum of all of them is the stuff of fantasy.
Sexually, and in most other respects as well, I remain proudly and defiantly deviant from the so-called norms of the sick perverted culture to which I regularly return.
At times I feel like a sexagenarian Fletcher Christian
Yerownself?
View all comments by Prufrock
Stuck in Scotland, bud.
Susan Boyle is ‘normal’ where i come from
View all comments by ziggypop
How about a kung fu night down at the mango in honour of the great man? He was great in kung fu..I grew up to top class viewing like that, as well as starsky and hutch, star trek, kojak, scooby doo etc etc. 20 june would be a good night. Show some re-runs of the old maestro…glasshopper cocktails and noodle burgers. See you all at 6.30pm for the KO.
View all comments by Rope-a-dope
I was just looking at the BBC News site. They have a prison photo of Phil Spector without his wig on the front page. Is that really any different from dead pics of Carradine. It’s still a freak show masquerading as news. We’re not that much different from the Thais.
View all comments by Poodle
Palpably different. Mugshots and autotopsy photos are two different fish kettles.
You been smoking something?
View all comments by ziggypop
@ Poodle: Yeah Poor Phil Spectre getting front-paged without his wig. How unfair. Anti-Semitic for sure
Unlike the psychotic and murderous Phil Spectre, DC hadn’t been convicted of murdering an innocent woman in cold blood.
I think you give up your rights to anonymity AFTER YOU’RE CONVICTED TWICE in a court of law of murdering a totally innocent person in cold blood in the vestibule of your home.
I know OAH may not agree but Phil Spectre hanging there would have been almost tasteful.
View all comments by Prufrock
Hi Ziggypop
Sorry to hear about the Scotland thing.(what I recounted BTW was a “phenomenal day in the mirror”) – When you live and work here most days are a BTS perv, a Central Chitlom perv hot receptionist perv . . . mostly humdrum affairs and wishful thinking and trying not to fall into the Thai stereotypical “dirty old man” mode for all to see and ridicule. I come here for that
BTW there’s lots of Susan Boyles here too but we just don’t focus on ‘em after we get our somtam and chicken.
That hot leggy brainy bank chick with tremendously appropriate fashion sense (except for the shoe thing, a rarity among Thai middle management women) is gonna be a tremendous logistical problem.
I figure she’s a trimmer.
View all comments by Prufrock
Predictably, a US autopsy has concluded that Carradine did not commit suicide.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525866,00.html
I guess the doc in California doesn’t understand that ALL foreigners who die in Thailand have to be either suicides or natural causes.
View all comments by OldAsiaHand
I think Phil Spector was wrongly convicted. It was clearly a case of suicide. Some old hagtress trying for the fame in death she desired her whole life. Now poor Phil is in jail without his wig. Terrible state of affairs. As Mrs Spector pointed out: “they don’t allow for much accessorising while in prison.” Shocking.
OAH: Interesting that you read Fox News. I would never have thought that.
View all comments by Poodle
I knew somebody would make a smart-ass crack about that but, as a matter of fact, I read the NYT with one hand and hold my nose with the other. The link came from a blog I was reading which was referenced on the NYT website (!). So there.
View all comments by OldAsiaHand
Fox news – yes. makes sense for them to print the first mister celebrity autopsy boy says. this is like hiring a medical expert for a trial – they say whatever you pay them to. Go figure.
I don’t get how an autopsy is going to prove much unless there is actually proof that he was killed. If he died of a heart attack or something then he died of a heart attack. how will that show murder? I mean if this is a murder – they did a damn good job of making it look like a freak happened to die while jerking himself off.
another article here discussing how one can tie themselves up so being tied up cannot prove murder.
http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/08/big-clue-in-carradines-tied-hands/#
at the end of the day this will all be about insurance and killing himself makes it hard for for wife and movie people to collect right? accidental death probably does not.
given this is thailand I am sure some percentage of the insurance money can be diverted to the right thai authority who simply has to use the accidental death stamp on the paperwork. Cant imagine that this stamp has not been used before.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
Right the doc said he didn’t try to kill himself, he just wanted to get a nut and the rope slipped. I hope some Katoy comes forward and says “I just loved him too much, we had done this a few times before” but the rope …… well you know.
View all comments by THE MAN
ssB Good analysis of what likely went down.
Straight forward foul play works for the family.
Hard to prove mis-adventure when it’s “rock-climbing.”
The insurance angle definitely figures large in the final draft and *their* biggest profit center for the last 20 years has been denial of claim.
The lawyers will eat big in this one.
View all comments by Prufrock
Thai media (and law enforcement) shows definitely less constraint than the mainstream western media.
I recall the local Thai news ‘recreating’ the rape of a 15 year old girl – by having the accused actually lay on top of the victim . . . while a crowd of onlookers and media watched.
Try that in Europe or the USA.
View all comments by DJ
From what i’ve read and heard on news reports it does sound somewhat odd that David could have been alone. There’s definately more to this than whats out in the public domain.
Was David with a new friend of some description? I guess we’ll probably never find out, but, with his known kinky background i wouldn’t be surprised if something sinister went on?
I for one feel it’s a shame he died, i quite liked some of the films/ programs he was in, mostly notably the movie – The Silent Flute, bit of a cult classic, mixing chinese philosophy with martial arts and an added dimension of mysticism.
RIP David Carradine.
View all comments by Eddie T
Another Bruce Lee connection with the Silent Flute movie you mention Eddie T.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silent_Flute
View all comments by ziggypop
Now that suicide is ruled out, the family should fade off into the woodwork knowing that the insurance money will be rolling in.
DJ I remember that re enactment with the dude laying on to top of the girl. Could not believe that they could do something like that, the whole bunch would have been fired and in jail faster than a speeding bullet if in the States.
View all comments by THE MAN
I am loving this post:
http://horiwood.com/2009/06/07/david-carradines-death-photo/
this guy wants new laws in thailand to prevent photos like this. please.
some good comments though:
This doesn’t have anything to do with ‘sex tourism’ in Bangkok and in Thailand. He didn’t come here to tie himself up, he could have done that anywhere…
Also, the fact the Thais published the photo also doesn’t have anything to do with insensitivity to death or anything like that. Because of their buddhist culture and beliefs on death and dying, they’re nonchalant about the afterlife, because it’s cyclical. For them, dying and death is no big deal, and contributes to their wonderfully laid-back and peaceful attitude. If you’ve ever spent time here and got to know the people, this whole situation wouldn’t be suprising in the least.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
This post is spot on!
View all comments by Kit
Well he was definitely well hung.
View all comments by The Sandman