After Thompson’s suicide, attorney saw clues

By David Abel, Globe Staff | February 22, 2005

If one of Hunter S. Thompson’s last wishes comes true, the body of the late maverick journalist will be cremated this week and his ashes blasted from a cannon across his sprawling ranch in Woody Creek, Colo.

That will be the extent of Thompson’s funeral, as he told friends and family, said George Tobia Jr., a Boston-based entertainment lawyer who has represented the author for the past 15 years. Tobia said he has spent a few hours every week, often in the wee hours of the day, fielding requests from and chatting up the man who created gonzo journalism.

In a phone interview yesterday, Tobia said only in retrospect does it makes sense that the 67-year-old author sat in his kitchen Sunday afternoon, stuck a .45-caliber handgun in his mouth, and killed himself while his wife listened on the phone and his son and daughter-in-law were in another room of his house. His wife had no idea what had happened until she returned home later.

Author Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself

By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer

DENVER (AP) – Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of fictional journalism in books like “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.

“Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family,” Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News.

Pitkin County Sheriff officials confirmed to The Associated Press that Thompson had died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Thompson’s wife, Anita, was not home at the time.

Sad but true. HST shot himself at his fortified compound in Woody Creek.

Thompson had a huge effect on me. Not that I espoused his abuse of chemicals and of his body. But his way of writing – using brutal imagery to underscore great insight in a way that no one would dare argue with the logic. During his prime he surely stomped the terra. The Gonzo ethic also rung true for my own work in technology – the sudden bursts of creativity, often at the last minute … a blinding explosion of activity. Knowing that someone else out there worked in the same bizarre way as I did was, at least, a comfort.

For almost 20 years, the one thing I have taken on every long airline flight was my copy of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” I must have read it 100 times by now, but never get tired of the tale, or the way it is told.

Mahalo, Hunter.