Nov 5, 2019 | By Tim Stoddart

Saoirse Kennedy-Hill Dies from Accidental Overdose.

Addiction & Recovery News

Last week, the New York Times reported that Saoirse Kennedy-Hill, who passed away on August 1st at the Kennedy family compound, passed due to a “toxic mixture of methadone, alcohol, and other prescription drugs.”

Her cause of death remained unknown for months due to a massive backlog at the Massachusetts medical examiner’s officer.

“Our Hearts Are Shattered”

However, the death certificate states that Hill’s death resulted from mixing alcohol with methadone, diazepam, and nordiazepam, a generic form of the sedative Valium. The report also stated she had fluoxetine in her system, a generic form of the anti-depressant Prozac and norfluoxetine. Additionally, the incident as accidental.

“Our hearts are shattered by the loss of our beloved Saoirse,” said the Kennedy family in a statement in August. “Her life was filled with hope, promise and love. She cared deeply about friends and family, especially her mother Courtney, her father Paul, her stepmother Stephanie, and her grandmother Ethel.”

The statement quoted Ethel Kennedy as saying: “The world is a little less beautiful today. She lit up our lives with her love, her peals of laughter and her generous spirit. Saoirse was passionately moved by the causes of human rights and women’s empowerment and found great joy in volunteer work, working alongside indigenous communities to build schools in Mexico. We will love her and miss her forever.”

Saoirse was the daughter of Courtney Kennedy Hill, the fifth of 11 children born to RFK and wife Ethel Kennedy.

“A Heavy Boulder on My Chest”

At the time, Saoirse was enrolled at Boston College as a communication major. She was also vice president of the College Democrats. In high school, she wrote an essay for the school newspaper about struggling with depression.

“My depression took root in the beginning of my middle school years and will be with me for the rest of my life,” she wrote in the February 2016 article. “Although I was mostly a happy child, I suffered bouts of deep sadness that felt like a heavy boulder on my chest. These bouts would come and go, but they did not outwardly affect me until I was a new sophomore at Deerfield.”

Kennedy Hill also revealed in the article that someone she “knew and loved broke serious sexual boundaries” with her before her junior year of high school. “I did the worst thing a victim can do, and I pretended it hadn’t happened. This all became too much, and I attempted to take my own life,” she wrote.

“We are all either struggling or know someone who is battling an illness,” the article concluded. “Let’s come together to make our community more inclusive and comfortable.”

The granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy was only 22 years of age.

2 responses to “Saoirse Kennedy-Hill Dies from Accidental Overdose.

  • So very, very sad to know this tragic end of a young woman of such promise. May she now be at peace resting in the arms of the Eternal One.

  • k a very sad story and my condolences on the loss,It’s sad that it takes someone with a famous name to get public attention, but how is this an accident? Why was she prescribed benzo’s with a Methadone script? We all know what the combination results in. Didn’t her Doctor explain this tom her? and what was she on Methadone for? What angers me is people who have no place being on these meds,Methadone has become such a cash grab that it is being used as a treatment for addiction, with little or no follow up, Was there any aftercare or just a script and thats it? When are parents , Doctors going to understand there is no WONDER PILL to solve addiction , why was she given these drugs? who was watching her , cause , sorry but obviously she could not be trusted

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