Gilded dynasty stalked by tragedy and disaster
JOSEPH P KENNEDY JR Died in a plane crash during the Second World War. He was 29.
ROSEMARY KENNEDY Joseph’s sister had been institutionalised since 1941 after a failed lobotomy. She died in 2005.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY Rosemary’s sister married William John Robert Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington. He was killed in the Second World War. She died in a plane crash in 1948 aged 28.
PRESIDENT JOHN F KENNEDY Assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He was 46. Despite a mass of evidence pointing to gunman Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone, conspiracy theorists have long claimed JFK was the victim of a plot by political rivals or organised crime bosses, among other ‘suspects’.
Son PATRICK was born prematurely in 1963 and died two days later, three months before his father’s assassination.
Son JOHN F KENNEDY JR was killed with his wife and sister-in-law when their small plane crashed off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in 1999. He was 38. ROBERT F KENNEDY Assassinated in Los Angeles in June 1968. He was 42.
Son DAVID died in 1984 of a drug overdose in a hotel after being ousted from the family vacation home at Palm Beach. He was 28. Son JOSEPH (Joe) was involved in a 1973 car accident that left a female passenger paralysed. Son MICHAEL was killed in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado. He was 39.
EDWARD M KENNEDY Drove a car off a bridge on Massachusetts’ Chappaquiddick Island in 1969 after a party, killing aide Mary Jo Kopechne. She was 28. Son EDWARD Jr’s right leg had to be amputated in 1973 because of cancer.
Son PATRICK, a former congressman, sought treatment for cocaine addiction as a teenager in 1986. MARY RICHARDSON KENNEDY, estranged wife of Robert F Kennedy Jr., died by suicide in May 2012. She was 52.