Too stoned to save Lady Beth
The boyfriend of Marquess’s drug death girl admits family blame him and says: ‘I could have done more but I was too gone’
THE boyfriend of an 18-year-old aristocrat who died after a two-day drugs and al cohol bi nge has revealed how her heartbroken father told him: ‘You could have taken better care of her.’
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Jenan Herzog Karagoli described how the Marquess of Queensberry confronted him after his youngest daughter, Lady Beth Douglas, was found dead in a squalid flat.
‘ He told me that I could have looked after her better. I felt like her family were blaming me. There was a heavy sense of I could have done something,’ said Karagoli.
The 21-year-old also revealed how their relationship revolved around cocaine and that Beth – known as Ling Ling to friends and family – had a history of self-harm.
The tragedy emerged last week after an inquest heard how the teenager – a talented musician from one of Britain’s most distinguished aristocratic families – had been found unconscious with needle marks in her arm after taking cocaine and heroin.
Last night, Karagoli insisted he had done everything he could to save Beth after finding her unconscious at a house party in the early hours of March 7. The couple, who had been together for ten months, had gone to the flat in Notting Hill, West London, close to the flat they shared with his mother in the iconic landmark Trellick Tower.
Karagoli described how he briefly left the party to buy a bottle of wine, but when he returned he found his girlfriend unconscious.
He said: ‘I saw her slumped on the sofa. I had a bottle of red wine in my hand and there was a guy next to us with a bottle of Hennessy.
‘I just crashed with her on the sofa. She seemed snug, so I joined her and fell asleep. I woke up at 1.30am and tried to wake her, and she was not waking up.
‘She was still warm, and that’s when I started to panic. I saw this man taking crack and he said that it happens all the time. I asked him, “What? What happens all the time? I don’t know what’s happened.”
‘I told him to call the ambulance, and I called an ambulance as well from her phone. Then I told him, “Here’s a tenner, get me some cigarettes.” That’s when he fled – he probably told other dealers to toss their phones.’
Karagoli added: ‘The ambulance took about 15 to 20 minutes. I was trying to put her in recovery. I was trying to resuscitate her, the paramedics tried to do CPR. They said she was deceased at the scene.’
Two weeks later, Beth was cremated in a Buddhist ceremony in London. Days afterwards, Karagoli was confronted by her father David Douglas, the 88-year-old 12th Marquess of Queensberry.
Karagoli insists that he did not know what was going on that night, but admits that his own drug-addled state may have affected how he could have helped Beth.
He said: ‘David said I could have been a bit more conscious and taken care of her. I fully respect that – I hold nothing against that.
‘I fully believe I could have done more, but unfortunately at the time I was too gone.’
Karagoli also told The Mail on Sunday that Beth had recently set her- self up as an online dominatrix using Twitter to advertise her services. In the months leading up to her death, she posted a series of disturbing selfies and videos, including some of her half-naked. Others appear to show her under the influence of drugs.
She also offered to ‘ perform naked’ on Skype for £20 and tried to sell her underwear. Most of the other posts are too explicit to be included in a family newspaper.
Both of the couple’ s email addresses were posted publicly for clients to use when they were send- ing payments. Admitting he knew about the services, Karagoli said: ‘It was funny. She would send people pictures, which was nice, and in reward [told them], “You are going to send me money.” She made about £500 from the whole thing. She ran it for two to three months.’
He denies that he personally took any of the money raised by her.
And he revealed that their relationship revolved around cocaine from the beginning, adding: ‘For the first few months, everything was fl owery. We were t aking cocaine and going to parties. We were taking cocaine not on a daily basis, but every other day.’
Last week’s inquest at Westminster Coroner’s Court heard that Beth had a history of drug and alcohol addiction, and had been known to mental health services since the age of 13 when she had begun selfharming. At 17, she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
At the hearing, the Marquess said
he knew his daughter had a history of taking drugs but that he did not believe she had injected heroin before. He also criticised police for failing to identify the dealer who sold the lethal drug.
The inquest listed cardiac respi- ratory failure and cocaine and heroin poisoning as the cause of death. Coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe said: ‘ The police found no needles or syringes. As far as they are concerned there is no further action they can take.’