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Robin Williams was one of the funniest and most gifted comedians of his generation. He burst to prominence in 1978 in the hit TV sitcom “Mork & Mindy” and won an Oscar for “Good Will Hunting” in 1997. But just before mid-day on August 11, 2014, he was found hanging in his home in California. Now, Dr. Richard Shepherd pieces together the events of Robin Williams’ last hours.
It’s still almost impossible to think that Robin Williams passed away a year ago. As an actor, many of his films, for me, were very hit and miss but when he was on his A game, he was on fire. “Good Morning Vietnam,” “Dead Poets Society” and one of my all-time favorites, “Awakenings,” showed the world that he could rival even Robert De Niro in the acting department and his Oscar win for “Good Will Hunting,” was more proof of his dramatic capabilities. But it was his comedy that people loved most. From his early days as a standup comic to his hit TV show “Mork & Mindy,” followed by turns in such hilarious movies as “Mrs Doubtfire,” “The Birdcage” and his voiceover work in Disney’s “Aladdin,” Robin Williams seemed to have it all. But on August 11th, 2014, all of that changed.
Robin Williams succumbed to suicide after he tied a belt around his neck and hanged himself, dying of asphyxiation. It later emerged that he was battling severe depression and earlier in the year, he checked into the Hazelden Foundation Addiction Treatment Center in Lindstrom, Minnesota for treatment related to his ongoing fight with alcoholism. Mr. Williams was also diagnosed with early stage Parkinson’s disease and when you combine all of these factors together, many assumed it was this amalgamation that drove him to take his own life. After all, it was his body which he used for comedic purposes in his movies and onstage and it would be easy to presume that the thought of Parkinson’s, a disease that affects movement, speech, cognition, mood, behavior, and thought, would consume his body and eventually prevent him from doing what he loved most.
But in studying his autopsy reports, Dr. Richard Shepherd, a forensic pathologist, found proof that Mr. Williams was in the early stages of another debilitating disease: Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), a type of dementia closely associated with Parkinson’s disease. Some of the symptoms include recurrent visual hallucinations, blank expression (reduced range of facial expression), ratchet-like cogwheeling movements, low speech volume, paranoia and transient loss of consciousness. This, in Dr. Shepherd’s medical opinion, was the determining factor in Robin Williams’ death. While he may not have been diagnosed with it, he most certainly was experiencing some of its characteristics and in addition to his Parkinson’s, severe depression and his continuing battle with alcoholism, he probably felt like suicide was his only way out. At least that might have been his ‘rational’ train of thought at that time.
According to Mr. Williams’ wife, Susan Schneider, in the weeks leading up to his death, he was displaying obvious signs of paranoia, restlessness and severe mood swings, mannerisms synonymous with both Parkinson’s and Lewd Body Dementia. During the autopsy, doctors also discovered cuts on his wrist, suggesting that he may have attempted to take his life one way before apparently succeeding at asphyxiation. In the end though, nobody but Mr. Williams knows the exact reasons as to why he ended his life. We can all speculate and ascertain that the various elements in his life, battles with alcohol and drugs, depression, Parkinson’s and Lewy Body Dementia, may have all indeed contributed to his demise, in some capacity but when all is said and done, he, like all of us, had his own demons to carry and now that he is gone, may he rest in peace. It is time to move on and remember him for the wonderful actor and comic genius he once was.
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