People Who Died

It’s been a fascinating year for publicly reported deaths. Witness the media saturation of Michael Jackson, who stole Farrah Fawcett’s thunder, who in turn had stolen David Carradine’s, and let’s not forget poor Patrick Swayze who will at least be remembered for being fun to watch in movies rather than a creepy drug-addled beacon of shame. This week we also say goodbye to Jim Carroll, author of the infamous Basketball Diaries.

Hands up if you find the story surrounding the death of David Carradine utterly sordid and fascinating in the

classic, vintage vein of Hollywood’s golden ‘babylon’ era? Adding to this is what appears to be a moratorium on reportage of the circumstances surrounding his death. Here is one of the juicier links which appeared soon after the news hit: 

http://www.bittenandbound.com/2009/06/07/david-carradine-death-hanging-photo-published/

If Carradine’s death has served to remind me of anything, it’s to remember never to lend out books to people. 

Some years ago, amongst the ephemera of tiki, 50s kitcsh and kustom car culture at Faster Pussycat in Newtown, I spotted a book I’d heard about for ages: The Amok Journal, Sensurround Edition. At the time, I just wanted it for the interview between William Burroughs and Jimmy Page, but elsewhere in the book were shocking and intriguing depictions of depravity gleaned from medical journals and anthropologists, about things like acrotomophilia (people with amputee fetishes) and autoeroticism, and people dying while getting off. Far from TMZ.com - but brave in motive – weirder shit exists and you don’t even know about it.

Which is why I’m shitty about lending that book to a friend, because I never saw it again, and now I have lost the chance to whip it out to prove my aforementioned statement about weird shit. Of course, these themes still manage to seep into the mainstream news channels:

Five children were orphaned by a married couple’s “act of love gone terribly wrong” and a subsequent suicide, a NSW coroner has found.

Julia Gauci, 36, and her husband of 17 years Christopher Gauci, 45, were found dead on June 9, 2008 at their rural property near Gulgong, in central western NSW.

Deputy State Coroner Hugh Dillon was told they had a “phenomenal” marriage, and that Mr Gauci had been “besotted” by his wife.

“She was his princess,” friend Peter Cork told the inquest at Mudgee.

Mr Dillon on Tuesday found Mrs Gauci had died from “manual asphyxia” by misadventure.

He noted her body had been lovingly dressed in her daughter’s white debutante ball dress, with a Virgin Mary statue placed nearby.

Mr Gauci’s body was found in the property’s machinery shed, with the coroner finding he had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

“It is one of the saddest stories I have heard and it is particularly sad because the children have been left behind, orphaned – left in this terrible way,” the coroner said.

The Gauci children, now aged between seven and 18 years, are in the care of relatives and were not present at the inquest.

Counsel assisting the coroner, Rebbecca Becroft said, on the day before their deaths the couple had visited friends and appeared “happy” and “normal”.

They had no financial problems, no history of domestic violence nor any substance abuse issues, the inquest was told.

Mr Gauci was the “primary carer” for his wife who suffered epilepsy, Mr Dillon was told.

Forensic pathologist Timothy Lyons said Mrs Gauci’s airways had been blocked and that a “moderate amount of force (had been) applied for that to occur”.

There were no signs she had resisted the asphyxia, he added.

“There appeared … to be two possibilities. First, that Christopher killed Julia deliberately … and that secondly (she died) while they were engaged in marital relations,” Mr Dillon said.

“There is, in my view, a weak case that Christopher deliberately killed Julia, but there is a much stronger case that this was a terrible mishap – something that went terribly wrong in their bedroom, not because of anger … but paradoxically, because of their love for one another.”

He accepted evidence the pair were in a “powerful”, “loving” and “passionate” relationship that had produced five children, and that Mrs Gauci’s death was “an act of love gone terribly wrong”.

The court was told that before his death, Mr Gauci told his eldest daughter: “Mum’s passed away, look after the kids.”

He also reportedly called his wife’s father, John Delaney, to inform him of his daughter’s death.

Such acts were not those of a murderer, Mr Dillon said.

“His remorse was so deep, so profound, he felt that he could not go on living himself,” Mr Dillon said of Mr Gauci.

The couple’s eldest daughter called triple-0 after seeing her father go into the shed, put a rope around his neck, pick up a firearm and climb a ladder, police said.

When police found Mrs Gauci’s body in the main bedroom, she had been dressed in a white debut dress.

“It seems extraordinary for a murderer to dress his own wife in a beautiful dress,” Mr Dillon said.

“It is much more likely that he did that because he loved her and wanted her to look beautiful when found by police or by ambulance officers.”

Outside court, Mr Gauci’s sister-in-law Marian Gauci said the couple’s children are “doing well”.

Other family members present welcomed the finding of misadventure.

It could be your neighbours!