By David Matthews
New York Daily News
HYANNIS PORT, Mass. — A granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy died Thursday after paramedics responded to a report of a possible drug overdose at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Mass.
The death of Saoirse Kennedy Hill, 22, who had written of her struggles with depression, is under investigation by local police.
“Our hearts are shattered by the loss of our beloved Saoirse,” the family said in a statement. “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.”
“Our hearts are shattered by the loss of our beloved Saoirse. 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.”
— Matt Stevens (@Stevens122289) August 2, 2019
Ethel Kennedy, 91, Robert F. Kennedy’s widow, is quoted in the statement as saying, “The world is a little less beautiful today.”
Hill was taken to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis around 2:30 p.m., where she was pronounced dead.
“Earlier [Thursday] afternoon, Barnstable Police responded to a residence on Marchant Ave. in Hyannis Port for a report of an unattended death,” the Cape & Islands District Attorney’s Office wrote in a news release.
“The matter remains under investigation by Barnstable Police and state police detectives assigned to the District Attorney’s Office.
Hill, whose mother is Courtney Kennedy Hill, was previously enrolled at Boston College, where she was a communication major and vice president of the College Democrats.
She detailed her struggle with depression in articles for her high school newspaper.
“People talk about cancer freely; why is it so difficult to discuss the effects of depression, bipolar, anxiety, or schizophrenic disorders?” she wrote.
“Just because the illness may not be outwardly visible doesn’t mean the person suffering from it isn’t struggling,” she wrote.
Her father, Paul Michael Hill, was falsely accused of involvement in Irish Republican Army bombings and served 15 years in prison before being released in 1990.
He and Courtney Kennedy Hill married in 1993 but separated in 2006.
The Kennedy family’s Hyannis Port compound includes multiple homes on six acres of waterfront property. It’s belonged to the Kennedy family since the 1920s.
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