Saoirse Kennedy Hill, Robert F. Kennedy’s granddaughter is dead.
The 22-year-old was found at her family’s Cape Cod compound in Massachusetts. It is believed that Saoirse Kennedy Hill battled depression. On Friday, the police were investigating the death and the compound.
In 2016, Hill spoke frankly about her depression and published an essay for the student newspaper at Massachusetts prep school, where she attended.
She says she felt “deep sadness that felt like a heavy boulder on my chest”, she felt it first in middle school and had returned two weeks before her junior year.
She said it’s because someone she knew and loved broke serious sexual boundaries with her, and added “I did the worst thing a victim can do, and I pretended it hadn’t happened. This all became too much, and I attempted to take my own life.”
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Hill’s loved ones pay tribute
“Saoirse was fierce, both in her love for her family and yearning for justice,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted on Instagram. “A fearless adventurer, she inspired curiosity and daring in her friends. But her greatest gift was to find humor in everything and to give us all the gift of her laughter – and our own. The gaping hole that she leaves in our family is a wound too large to ever heal.”
A day earlier, 91-year-old Ethel Kennedy released a statement of her own. “The world is a little less beautiful today,” she said.
“Saoirse was passionately moved by the causes of human rights and women’s empowerment and found great joy in volunteer work, working alongside indigenous communities to build schools in Mexico,” the Kennedy family’s statement said. “We will love and miss her forever.”
“The cause and manner of death are pending the toxicology report,” Tara Miltimore of the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office said. “The matter remains under investigation by the Barnstable police and State Police detectives assigned to the District Attorney’s Office.”
The Kennedys are getting used to tragedy, and Hill’s death adds to the so-called family curse. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. His brother, Joseph, was killed in World War II, and their sister Kathleen Cavendish died in a plane crash in 1948.
The president’s son, John F. Kennedy Jr., was killed in 1999 when the airplane he was flying crashed off Martha’s Vineyard into the Atlantic Ocean. His wife, Carolyn Bessette, and sister-in-law were on board and also died.
