Thai police don't rule out murder in Carradine death (2nd Roundup)

Jun 5, 2009, 7:36 GMT

   Bangkok - Thai police on Friday refused to rule out the possibility of foul play in the death of US actor David Carradine, whose body was found in his Bangkok hotel closet the previous day in what forensic experts described as an 'abnormal' death scene.

   'We haven't excluded any possibilities,' said Police Colonel Thavachai Maekprasertsuk, deputy director of the police forensic institute.

   The body of Carradine, 72, who first shot to fame in the 1970s Kung Fu television series, was found Thursday morning in the closet of his suite by maid at the five-star Swissotel Park Nai Lert Bangkok.

   Carradine was in the Thai capital shooting a film called Stretch.

   The Bangkok Metropolitan Police commissioner, Lieutenant General Worapong Chewpreecha, confirmed that Carradine had been found with his neck bound to his penis by a shoestring and his hands tied.

   Forensic experts at Chulalongkorn Hospital, which conducted an autopsy on the body, concluded that Carradine had died of suffocation.

   'There were no signs of struggle or murder,' the hospital said in a press statement.

   DNA samples taken from Carradine's body, which is to be flown back to the United States Saturday, would be used to determine if there was anyone else in his room at the time of his death, it said.

   'David Carradine's death was an unusual one,' said Nanthana Sirisap, head of the autopsy division at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn Hospital. 'The case is abnormal.'

   Well-known Thai forensics expert Porntip Rojanasunan said the actor might have died from 'auto-erotic asphyxiation,' according to the Bangkok Post newspaper.

   Carradine recently starred in Quentin Tarantino's two-part movie Kill Bill. His first major role was as the fugitive half-Chinese Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine in the TV drama series Kung Fu.

   Speaking in the United States, a representative for Carradine insisted that his death was accidental.

   'We can confirm 100 per cent that he never would have committed suicide,' the spokesman told the celebrity website TMZ.com. 'It was an accidental death. Everybody is in shock.'