David Carradine Book Reveals Incest, Murder Suspicions

July 21, 2010- -- Just over a year ago actor David Carradine died a seedy death, hanging by a drapery cord in the cramped closet of a Bangkok hotel room. Now, his ex-wife says she believes the 72-year-old "Kung Fu" actor was murdered.

Authorities ruled that Carradine had accidentally suffocated in a lone sex practice known as autoerotic asphyxiation, but his fourth wife, Actress Marina Anderson, claims in a new book that the actor "never flew solo" and the autopsy and other details of his death "just don't fit."

Anderson, who was married to Carradine from 1998 to 2001, admits that her husband's kinky sex life -- a penchant for bondage and being choked to the point of orgasm -- was no surprise, ultimately destroying their marriage and leading to his death.

"I believe he was murdered," she told ABCNews.com in an interview this week. "That's all there is to it."

"For David to accidentally do it to himself, that's not the act," said Anderson. "He never flew solo when we were together. That didn't fit the scenario. David liked participation."

Anderson knew that firsthand from satisfying Carradine's sexual requests during their marriage.

"I never got to the point of suffocation," she said. "It totally freaked me out. I liked having oxygen in my brain."

In her memoir, "David Carradine: The Eye of My Tornado," which hit bookstores this month, Anderson said she was compelled to investigate the mysterious circumstances of Carradine's death, obtaining autopsy results and death scene photos and interviewing coroners in Bangkok, as well as American coroners Dr. Michael Baden and Dr. Steven Pitt.

"I was angry," wrote Anderson, now 58. "There were certain things on there that I thought, 'Well, you can't have marks around your neck by just doing an autoerotic or sexual asphyxiation.' I mean, it went over the line. There was something really hinky that happened."

"Maybe someone would want to do that for money. David always carried a lot of cash and he always wore expensive watches -- you can attract unwanted elements," she suggests. "Given what David was into, Thailand, Bangkok is sex heaven, and I think he indulged and something went incredibly wrong."

Carradine was found dead on June 4, 2009 at the Swissotel Nai Lert Park Hotel where he was staying while shooting the film "Stretch." At first it was called a suicide.

Family and friends refuted the findings and Anderson agreed. "David was always happy when he worked," she said. Later, after two autopsies were conducted, Thai authorities concluded Carradine's death had been caused by "accidental asphyxiation."

"I believe he was targeted, whether they went up to his room unsolicited or he got bored and went into town and brought somebody up," said Anderson. "I don't believe he was by himself."

At the time, Carradine family attorney Mark Geragos blamed the death on a mysterious sect of secret kung fu assassins. Geragos did not answer an e-mail from ABCNews.com, and he did not pick up his phone to comment on Anderson's book.

A year later, in June, Carradine's fifth wife and widow, the former Annie Bierman, filed a lawsuit against the production company that was handling the film, alleging breach of contract and wrongful death.

Anderson said she began writing the book long before the couple divorced in 2001, hoping to bring insight into the man whom she said had "intoxicating energy" and a renegade life infused with drugs, alcohol and an appetite for deviant sex.

"I don't think he ever wanted to intentionally hurt anybody," said Anderson. "But when he passed away under the circumstances he did, he was handing the baton to me to correct people's thinking and explain why. I didn't want the last memory with the public to be just that. There's got to be an understanding now of him as a human being, not a celluloid fantasy, with faults and his own demons, and for people to understand why he was like this."

Anderson, who is also an author of children's books and designs jewelry, has made appearances on television's "Ghost Whisperers" and "Desperate Housewives." Last year, she was cast as co-lead in an episode of the NBC series "Unsolved."