Alcoholics Anonymous Sponsor Found Mary Kennedy After Suicide

Mary Kennedy was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous at the time of her suicide. She was also not drinking at the time either. Her new AA sponsor of 5 weeks is the one that found her hanging. It seems very odd that the sponsor said she would just drop by without calling first. Why would you not call first? How rude, and rather suspect, as if she did this to check up on Mary to see if she was drinking. Mary certainly was not helped by AA. She might of had a hard time with the 4th step, where you are asked to confess all of your sins. This includes doing a ” sexual inventory”. She might of ended up feeling horrible about herself and decided she could not stand the pain.

Shannon White was the Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor who discovered Mary Richardson Kennedy’s body hanging in a garage on her property.  /  Alex Weisler / The Journal NewsShannon White was the Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor who discovered Mary Richardson Kennedy's body hanging in a garage on her property.

Shannon White was Mary Richardson Kennedy’s apparent Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor was the person who found her body hanging from a beam in a garage at her Bedford estate in May, according to a Westchester County Medical Examiner’s report obtained first to The Journal News/LoHud.com on Thursday.

Shannon White of Mount Kisco said she and Mary Kennedy’s male housekeeper discovered the body on a search of the Bedford property after Kennedy’s estranged husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., called White to say “he was concerned that something had happened to her.” White, a Presbyterian minister and freelance reporter for News 12, revealed herself hours after The Journal News first reported more details on Mary Kennedy’s death.

White said she didn’t call the Bedford Road estate before arriving; she and Mary Kennedy had the kind of relationship where White could arrive at the Bedford property unannounced.

“I was looking with the male housekeeper, and we were looking around on the property,” she told The Journal News/LoHud.com outside her Mount Kisco home. “Bobby went off to look in the woods, and I went off looking with the male housekeeper.” White wouldn’t confirm whether she was Mary Kennedy’s AA sponsor. She did say she was Kennedy’s “spiritual adviser,” a role she’d been serving at Kennedy’s request for the five weeks leading up to her death. “She had asked me to help her,” White said. White, who found Kennedy’s body at her Bedford home on May 16, would not comment on whether she was worried about her friend of 19 years in the weeks leading up to her death. She also would not discuss the nature of the spiritual adviser relationship. “Those are private conversations, so I’m not going to say anything on that,” she said. It was a Westchester County Medical Examiner’s investigative report first released to The Journal News/LoHud.com that revealed Kennedy’s AA sponsor was the one who found the body. The report also noted that no alcohol was found in Kennedy’s system, though there was on odor of alcohol on her face. Dr. Kunjlata Ashar, the acting Westchester County Medical Examiner, explained the possible contradiction.

“The breath smell is not a reliable indication of the presence of alcohol. The toxicology results are correct for absence of alcohol,” Ashar said. Kennedy, 52, was last seen alive about 3 p.m. May 15 by a caretaker and found dead by her sponsor the next afternoon, more than 22 hours later. She was hanging near some boxes, a diagram shows, and her hands were between the rope and her neck. The report says Kennedy, who had a history of alcohol abuse, didn’t leave a suicide note.

Kennedy’s brother, Tom Richardson, told investigators that the Richardson family would handle funeral arrangements and that the “Kennedy family is not to be involved in removal (of her body) or arrangements,” according to the report.Kennedy’s coffin was dug up last week and moved to a less-crowded area of St. Francis Xavier Cemetery in Hyannis, Mass., the New York Daily News reported Thursday. Gravedigger Frank Maki, who oversaw the move, told the newspaper that Robert Kennedy Jr. wanted her moved to the other end of the cemetery, where the family is negotiating to buy 50 plots.

“He (Robert) didn’t realize how crowded the area was until after the funeral, and he wanted to have the ability to lay his wife to rest among her family members,” Maki told the newspaper. “He opted for an area of the cemetery where there is room for future expansion.” Kennedy’s body was moved about 700 feet from the original burial site, the newspaper reported. Her siblings reportedly weren’t aware of the change until the newspaper contacted them. The Journal News obtained the new autopsy records Thursday, five days after the medical examiner released its basic findings that Mary Kennedy had at least three anti-depressants in her bloodstream when she committed suicide.

The report, first detailed by The Journal News on July 6, also showed Kennedy’s blood contained three pharmaceutical drugs: trazodone, known by the brand names Desyrel and Oleptro; desmethylvenlaxafine, known by the brand name Pristig; and venlafaxine, sold under the brand name Effexor.

Read entire story! –

http://www.lohud.com/article/20120712/NEWS02/307120075/Mary-Kennedy

8 thoughts on “Alcoholics Anonymous Sponsor Found Mary Kennedy After Suicide

    • I found that sad that Mary’s AA Sponsor did not have anything nice to say about her. NOTHING. She probably is mad that it makes Alcoholics Anonymous look bad that she committed suicide while having her as a sponsor. She is right!

  1. AntiDenial,

    I wouldnt be surprised to see a book written by Shannon White in the future. It really annoys me that she is too loyal to share Mary’s thoughts on the days that led up to this tragedy; but has no problem with exposing herself and all of the details in the recent articles. Mary probably trusted her. I dont think she would like this.

    I think the thing that disturbs me most is what the medical examiner said:

    “The report also noted that no alcohol was found in Kennedy’s system, though there was on odor of alcohol on her face. ”

    May be just me but I think something is very fishy. I feel so bad for this woman. First she had the challenge of the Kennedys all those years running her life and then an AA sponsors/spiritual adviser (what ever the hell the difference is?) to be accountable too. White never really admitted to being her sponsor, just a spiritual adviser. What a crock. We know she was her sponsor. Very Sad!

    • It does make you wonder if they splashed alcohol on her so they would initially think she was intoxicated, and that she stop working the program. Truth be told, it was her actually working the program and being divorced by her 12 stepper husband that sent her over the edge. God only knows what guilt trip they gave her. She came across as a very genuine person.

  2. Thanks Sue! I agree, I think it was very odd that a Mary would tolerate her sponsor being so rude. I cannot even believe it. It makes me sick to think what this poor woman went through. Then an AA member just thrusting herself into her home like that. I wonder why Mary’s husband thought something had happened to his wife. He is such a low life.

  3. So Shannon White could show up anytime; unannounced.
    I guess Mary was led to believe that she had lost her rights to privacy. Miss White would not discuss the nature of their spiritual relationship because it was private.

    Shannon White didnt mind disclosing her picture as her spiritual adviser. We all know she was her “anonymous sponsor”. Maybe that because she is a free lance reporter, In addition to being a presbyterian minister. Maybe this is the reporter side of Miss White.

    http://newyork.newsday.com/news/nation/aa-sponsor-recalls-finding-mary-k

    If she respected Mary’s privacy so much; why would Shannon White allow the details of their relationship to be drug back into the media again. She had to have approved this article; picture and all of herself. As her spiritual adviser/sponsor; It seems rather dis- respectful of her to Mary Kennedy. I hope for the sake of Marys children, this is the end of the media frenzy.

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