The FBI has offered its assistance to Thai authorities investigating Thursday’s death of actor David Carradine, agency officials tell PEOPLE.
After Carradine’s half-brother, Keith Carradine, met Friday with FBI officials in Los Angeles, those officials contacted the FBI’s legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok “to determine if the Thai authorities are requesting or would welcome FBI assistance in this matter,” FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimilller tells PEOPLE. She adds there is no word yet as to whether Thai authorities will invite the FBI to join their investigation.
The FBI has no jurisdiction in other countries, but occasionally offers assistance investigating the deaths of Americans when foul play is suspected or when the family requests such intervention.
Keith Carradine, 59, “wants authorities to investigate his brother’s death, and to determine if anyone else was involved,” says Keith Carradine’s attorney, Mark Geragos, who arranged Friday’s meeting with the FBI.
Geragos tells PEOPLE that Keith and other family members are finding the grieving process even more difficult because they keep getting conflicting details regarding the condition of Carradine’s body when it was discovered.
Thai police had confirmed that a maid found Carradine, 72, nude in the closet of his luxury suite with a rope tied around his neck and one around his genitals. “It is unclear whether he committed suicide or not, or he died of suffocation or heart failure,” said police Lt. Gen. Worapong Chewprecha, the Associated Pres reported. An autopsy was ordered because of the “unusual circumstances” surrounding the death, said Dr. Nanthana Sirisap, director of Chulalongkorn Hospital’s Autopsy Center.
For those who knew Carradine well, Geragos says the possibility that Carradine’s death was a suicide seems unlikely – he had a lust for life, a busy career and even a new sports car.
“The information keeps evolving, and that’s troubling them,” Geragos tells PEOPLE. He adds that although it has been reported that surveillance footage indicates no one entered or left David Carradine’s hotel room during the time he likely died, the family would like the FBI to review that evidence as well.
“It’s hard to start the grieving process when you don’t have all the information on what happened,” says Geragos. “Family members, including Keith and Hayley (DuMond, Keith’s companion), are frustrated and in shock.”
An autopsy has already been conducted on David Carradine in Bangkok, but a second might be done in the United States by the family, sources say.
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