Toxicology results show no alcohol found in Mary Kennedy's system
By Logan Burruss, CNN
updated 12:35 PM EDT, Sat July 7, 2012
Mary Kennedy, right, from whom Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed for divorce in 2010, was found dead on Wednesday, May 16. A medical examiner said she died of asphyxiation due to hanging. She was 52.
Members of the Kennedy family attend U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy's funeral in August 2009. Two years later, his daughter, Kara Kennedy, died of a heart attack after her daily workout. She is shown being embraced by her daughter, Grace, at right.
A judge sentenced Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel to 20 years to life in prison in 2002 for the 1975 killing of his teenage neighbor Martha Moxley. Skakel is the nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the widow of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
A woman cries at a public memorial Mass in New York for John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1999. He died in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. His wife and sister-in-law were also killed.
Michael Kennedy, one of RFK's 11 children, died in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado, in 1997. The father of three had suffered an onslaught of negative publicity over an alleged affair with a family babysitter. No charges were filed.
David Kennedy, another son of RFK, died in 1984 of a drug overdose in a hotel after being ousted from the family vacation home in Palm Beach.
Joe Kennedy, the eldest son of RFK, was involved in a 1973 car accident that left a female passenger paralyzed for life. He later served as a Massachusetts congressman and considered a bid for governor but decided against it, citing family troubles.
Sen. Ted Kennedy drove a car off a bridge on Massachusetts' Chappaquiddick Island after a party in 1969. Aide Mary Jo Kopechne died in the accident. He is shown wearing a neck brace at her funeral. Controversy over the incident effectively ended his presidential aspirations.
While campaigning for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968.
In 1964, Ted Kennedy suffered a broken back when his private plane crashed in Southampton, Massachusetts. Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh also survived the crash, but the pilot and one of Kennedy's aides were killed.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated during a motorcade in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He was 46.
At just 28, Kathleen Kennedy died in a plane crash in 1948. She had married William John Robert Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington, who was killed in World War II.
Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the eldest son of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, died at 29 in a plane crash during World War II.
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Three anti-depressants are found in her system at the time of her suicide
- Kennedy was found dead May 16
- The cause of death was ruled asphyxiation due to hanging
(CNN) -- Mary Richardson Kennedy, the estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had no traces of alcohol in her system when she took her own life in May, according to a toxicology report released Friday by the Westchester County medical examiner.
Kennedy, who had been battling depression, was found dead May 16 in Bedford, New York, a small town north of New York City where she lived. The medical examiner's office determined Kennedy died as a result of asphyxiation due to hanging. She was 52.
While no traces of alcohol were found in Kennedy's system, the medical examiner's report did find Trazodone, O-Desmethylvenlafaxine and Venlafaxine -- substances the National Institute of Health categorizes as anti-depressants.
Mary Kennedy married Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in 1994. The prominent environmental lawyer is the third of 11 children born to Ethel and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who was gunned down in 1968.
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Details of the couple's private life were exposed when Robert Kennedy filed for divorce in May 2010.
After that, Mary Kennedy was charged once with driving while intoxicated and once with driving while impaired by prescription drugs, according to Bedford police.
"A lot of times, I don't know how she made it through the day," Robert Kennedy told The New York Times. "She was in a lot of agony for a lot of her life."
Despite the divorce filing, the couple were still married at the time of Mary Kennedy's death, her family attorney, Kerry A. Lawrence, told CNN in May.
Mary Kennedy's family blasts stories on her death