Today's Evil Beet Gossip

Robin Williams officially died from “asphyxia due to hanging”

robin williams

As reported pretty much everywhere, Robin Williams was found dead of an apparent suicide on Monday at the age of 63. Incredibly sad news, and news that has raised a ton of discussion around the world in regards to mental health, substance abuse, etc.  Now an official statement has been released, giving us more of an insight (not that I think the public necessarily should have it) on what exactly happened.

From US Weekly:

In a press conference on Tuesday, Aug. 12, Lt. Keith Boyd told reporters that, while the investigation is ongoing, the Oscar-winning actor’s preliminary cause of death has been determined to be “asphyxia due to hanging.”

According to Lt. Boyd, Williams was found in his Tiburon, Calif., home at around 11:45 a.m. by his personal assistant, who became concerned when the actor failed to respond to knocks on his bedroom door. Boyd told reporters that Williams was discovered in a “seated position,” “slightly suspended” above the ground, with a belt around his neck.

There was also evidence, Boyd said, of superficial wounds on the inside of Williams’ left wrist. A pocket knife was found nearby.

Officials responded to the assistant’s 911 call at 11:55 a.m. According to Boyd, it’s unknown at this point when exactly he committed suicide, but he was pronounced dead just after 12:00 p.m.

Per Boyd’s timeline of events, Williams was last seen alive the previous evening at around 10:30 p.m., when his wife, Susan Schneider, went to bed. He retired to a different room in the house at some point that night.

So basically, he tried to slit his wrists first and when that didn’t work, he hanged himself. I can only imagine what a desperate state he must have been in – you would think that perhaps in a state of mania if he didn’t succeed in cutting his wrists, it might have snapped him back to reality a bit and made him stop and think. I don’t mean to be insensitive and I’m not blaming him – obviously I’ve never been there, so I can’t say for sure – I just think this keeps getting sadder and sadder and even when it’s someone you don’t know, it’s awful to see or hear about another person being in such pain.

Because the investigation is still going on, police wouldn’t reveal whether or not a note was left. We do know, however, that he had been in treatment for depression. Perhaps when he checked into rehab in the beginning of last month, he was hoping he could find help?

9 CommentsLeave a comment

  • “Perhaps when he checked into rehab in the beginning of last month, he was hoping he could find help?”

    no, he probably just went there because he was bored and had nothing else to do…-_-

    • Nice reply, smart ass.

      My comment was in regards to whether or not he was severely depressed at that state, since the official statement when he went was that it was just a “refresher” to make sure he didn’t fall back into his old patterns of drug use.

    • I agree. People who go to rehab aren’t looking for a “refresher”. It’s not a spa. He was suffering severe clinical depression his entire life. Its obvious the writer doesn’t understand mental health, which is understandable.

  • “it might have snapped him back to reality a bit and made him stop and think.”

    A bit of an insensitive remark, because it was precisely his reality that led him to act the way he did. It’s not like there’s a reality of living that everyone waves in and out from, and he needed to “snap back to it”. He was trying to snap out of it to begin with.

  • Since when is a celebrity gossip site “reporting the news”? Would I come here to learn about the wars in Iraq? No. How about children starving in Africa? Nope. I can’t think of a single ACTUAL news outlet that make any sort of comment like you did in regards to someone’s mental health. Reporting the “news” and voicing your own opinion about mental health are two completely different things, and you certainly did the latter. Your writing on this site actually gets worse the more of it I read, it’s like you write whatever comes to your head with zero regard for anyone else. I bet you wouldn’t be okay with someone writing about YOUR life the way you wrote about others. The fact that you have the audacity to try to defend yourself is beyond sad.

  • This is a gossip website, I don’t know what you guys were expecting here. This is her take on the story and she did a fine job talking about it. If you want to have someone tip toe around the story and be sensitive up the asshole about it you should have gone to CNN or something. She reports celebrity “news”, that IS why you’re here in the first place right? Self righteous morons.