I wish my daughter had never met and married President Kennedy's son

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Jul 11, 2004 | by JULIAN BROUWER in New York

MILLIONS will again mourn the loss of the man known as "America's Prince" next week - but John Kennedy Jnr's mother-in-law can't even bear hearing his name mentioned.

Five years ago on July 17, John, his wife Carolyn and her sister Lauren perished when a tiny plane, piloted by the playboy son of President Kennedy, plunged into the sea.

Their untimely deaths prompted months of national grief in the USA and saturation news coverage.

However, the Irish Sunday Mirror can reveal the parents and friends of Carolyn and Lauren wish the handsome magazine owner had never befriended the two society beauties in the first place.

Though the Kennedys paid a $15 million out of court settlement to the Bessettes to avoid a messy wrongful death lawsuit, the bitterness remains.

Neighbours say Carolyn's mother Ann Freeman refuses to speak John Junior's name in the house, only referring to the president's son as "him" and blames Kennedy for being a reckless daredevil.

A pal said: "Ann is still mad at John - she blames him for her daughters' deaths.

"I also think Ann regrets that her daughters weren't buried in a cemetery. She doesn't have a place to visit them and grieve.

"Their ashes were spread at sea off the coast of Martha's Vineyard."

The accident has taken a terrible toll on Ann, who has since become a recluse, locking herself away in the ocean-front home in Connecticut which she bought to remind herself of her daughters.

Another family friend said: "Ann Freeman has been through hell in the five years since the plane crash off Martha's Vineyard. With the exception of attending the burial at sea for Carolyn and the memorial service in Greenwich, Connecticut, for Lauren, Ann has remained indoors."

She suffered further emotional turmoil this year when her mother Jennie Messina passed away at the age of 91 and her other daughter Lisa decided to leave America and move to Europe because the country held too many painful reminders of her sisters' deaths.

An investigation conducted by America's National Transportation Safety Board also laid the blame for the crash squarely on Kennedy's shoulders.

An NTSB report released in July 2000 concluded the probably cause was "the pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night".

Robert Littell, who recently published a book titled The Men We Became: My Friendship With John F Kennedy, said the bitterness erupted shortly after the shocking tragedy.

Littell, a close friend of Kennedy, said he was astonished when Lauren's best friend cornered him at the memorial service for Lauren and raged: "Your friend killed my friend.

"If John weren't so reckless Lauren would still be alive."

Littell said: "The idea that John was to blame floated in the air that night

"I don't understand this blamefest. Will it bring them back?

"I'm sure John would have accepted responsibility for what happened.

"I imagine his last thought was a bottomless remorse for harming his beloved wife and sister-in-law."

Ann's ex-husband William, the father of the Bessette girls, is also still struggling to come to terms with the tragedy.

The family friend said: "William Bessette has been living in awful grief.

"He won't talk about his daughters' deaths. He is very bitter about what happened.

"It seems like the only piece of happiness he's had in the past year has been a new lady he has been dating - a flight attendant."

Not everyone blames Kennedy for the plane crash. Last year author Edward Klein claimed the flight became hopelessly delayed because an obstinate Carolyn insisted on having three pedicures that day.

And American tabloids went further - accusing Carolyn of keeping everyone waiting for hours because she was desperate to score cocaine from her drug pushing pals.

A Kennedy relative told a US scandal sheet: "Private investigators concluded that if Carolyn hadn't been such a coke freak she would have been at the airport on time and they would have been able to leave earlier.

"John was constantly on the cell phone urging her to hurry, but she was too busy scoring drugs to listen to his pleas.

"We traced her steps on that sad last day. We found out she'd been expecting to make a drug connection earlier that afternoon.

"She had arranged for a dealer to meet her either en route to Saks Fifth Avenue or at the store - but the dealer never turned up or missed her.

"John had told some of us that she literally couldn't face the thought of being with the Kennedys en masse without getting high. She though they didn't like her.

"She eventually hooked up with a dealer who passed the coke to her and she snorted some on the way to the airport."

"When Carolyn finally arrived at the airstrip, her behaviour allegedly put John on edge.

"She was glassy-eyed and bitching up a storm about going to the wedding as she finally climbed into the plane