See also David Kennedy (disambiguation)

David Anthony Kennedy was born on June 15, 1955 in Washington, D.C. He was the fourth of eleven children of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy.

He is said to have been alone in a hotel room when he witnessed the murder of his father on television in 1968. Of all the children, his father's death seemed to hit David the hardest. At Christmas time that same year, the 13-year-old David wrote a letter to his mother in which he said,

"There will be no more football with Daddy, no more swimming with him, no more riding and no more camping with him. But he was the best father there ever was and I would rather have him for a father for the length of time I did than any other father for a million years."

After several years of drug abuse, Kennedy's problem came to light in 1979 after he was robbed and assaulted in Harlem while reportedly trying to buy heroin. At this time, he was dating actress, Rachel Ward. After several attempts at a cure all failed, David Anthony Kennedy died of a drug overdose of Demerol and cocaine at the Brasilian Court motel in Florida on April 25, 1984.

References:

Life magazine special issue, The Kennedys: The Third Generation. 1997.