If Michael Jackson meets David Carradine in heaven – as unlikely as that’d be – he should expect a great big hug.

Why? Because thanks to Michael Jackson’s death, the world has forgotten about David Carradine and how he died in a Bangkok hotel cupboard wearing a lady’s wig, a set of fishnet stockings and a shoelace that was somehow tied and his neck and penis at the same time. So that’s good.

But David Carradine is back in the news again – a private pathologist has stated that he probably died of asphyxia. Funny, we had money on the cause being embarrassment.

You know David Carradine, the actor and apparent auto-erotic asphyxiation fetishist who appears to have died during a bout of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone horribly wrong? Yeah, turns out that asphyxia probably killed him. We know! We were shocked when we found out, too! We had his death down as either swine flu or a shark attack. Some experts we turned out to be.

However, it seems like asphyxia really was the cause of David Carradine’s death, because the private pathologist hired by the Carradine family said so, as AP reports:

The private pathologist who examined David Carradine’s body says Thai authorities have determined the actor died of asphyxia and so far, he agrees. Dr. Michael Baden says his examination of the “Kung Fu” star’s body and the details he’s received from Bangkok are consistent with an asphyxiation death. He conducted a second autopsy on Carradine’s body at the family’s request.

But hold on a second – don’t think that the mystery has closed just because a pathologist has stated the painfully obvious. Although he died of asphyxiation, nobody can say for sure whether David Carradine’s death was accidental and self-inflicted or, yes, if it was down to that rival kung-fu gang we’ve been hearing so much about lately.

True, the hotel’s CCTV doesn’t appear to show anyone entering or leaving David Carradine’s room in the hours before or after his death, but this is a rival kung-fu gang we’re talking about here. They could have somersaulted in through the window or burst through the ceiling armed with wigs, stockings and a shoelace long enough to tie around someone’s genitals and neck simultaneously or something. They’re the worst kind of rival kung-fu gangs – the ones with long shoelaces and an alarming sense of visual aesthetic.

Of course, in the coming weeks as toxicology and forensic test results are completed, we’ll all get a much clearer picture about the circumstances of David Carradine’s death and put all this grubby business behind us. When we said ‘a clearer picture’ just now, by the way, we weren’t talking about an actual physical picture of David Carradine’s death scene that we can all look at, because – you know – ugh. And stuff.

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