Woman driven to suicide by the Da Vinci Code

The woman driven to suicide by the Da Vinci Code

A painter fascinated with best-selling conspiracy thriller The Da Vinci Code committed suicide after becoming convinced she was the subject of a real-life murder plot.

She suffered paranoid delusions that she and her family were in danger "because of the knowledge that she had" of Leonardo after working on an exhibition about his paintings.

Caroline, a graduate of the Wimbledon College of Art, worked for years as a costume designer for the English National Opera on productions including The Magic Flute and Medea, and later went freelance.

One of the visitors was Professor Rocco Sinisgalli, a Renaissance art specialist from the University of Rome, who struck up a conversation with Caroline and asked her if she could help him translate a book he was writing about the artist Leone Battista Alberti.

Prof Sinisgalli later dedicated a book on Vitruvian Man "To the painter Caroline Eldridge" and sent her parents a copy with a note saying Caroline "had always shown a deep interest in this particular drawing and in Leonardo himself".

Caroline, who had no history of mental illness other than a brief battle with anorexia as a teenager, had what her father described as a "paranoid attack" whilst in Rome, and he flew to Italy to bring her home.

Source


I'm not real sure how much to extract from the article so I will leave it here. This is a very sad story to me as this woman appears to be extremely gifted in her artistry and wound up with a wonderful opportunity to study an artist in detail that she loved.

As I was reading through this tho, it left me with an impression that something doesn't fit with this story. Here you take a completely sane, talented woman and she takes pills to kill herself thinking "they" are after her for knowing too much?

Just what was it that she stumbled upon? I think this story has more to it.
It just doens't make sense to me.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Sorry, if I didn't extract the external sourcing correctly.

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[edit on 18-3-2007 by UK Wizard]

I notice there aren't any takers on this however this is more and more intriguing to me so I suppose I will engage in a soliloquy.

The story reads that she OD'd on Paracetamol which is basically known as
acetaminophen. Now I am not saying that you can't overdose on this OTC med but it's really not the drug of choice to OD as it expells from the body rather quickly even taken in large doses and is reputed not to do damage to the liver or other organs andyet the story reads that she went into multiple organ failure.

It reads:

The body rapidly absorbs Paracetamol, with the soluble form being absorbed even faster than the solid tablets. As the paracetamol is metabolised, the peak blood level remains less than 20mg/litre after a standard adult 1000mg dose. Blood serum levels will normally peak between half an hour to two hours after ingestion. The analgesic properties of paracetamol will last for around four hours. Paracetamol has a half-life of about two hours, after which it will rapidly be expelled from the body.

The second thing that bothers me is her age. 38 yrs old. Well beyond the mental breakdown yrs such as schizophrenia (sp) which usually presents in the early to mid 20's. Even overworked people don't typically deterorate like this.

So what if she found something that the church wanted to keep buried? Isn't this the lead in for the Da Vinci Code book anyway? It left people with the burning question what if and in the book people were silenced when they got to close to the truth.

I think this makes for a great conspiracy even if I am talking to myself.

Acetaminophen does do damage to organs while it is inside the body in high doses. A girl I knew in middle school took a bottle of tylenol to kill herself and nearly succeeded. She ended up with damage to her liver and kidneys as a result though.

Originally posted by DDay
Here you take a completely sane, talented woman and she takes pills to kill herself thinking "they" are after her for knowing too much?

It is very sad.

However, I don't think she was completely sane at the time. Her father said again and again that she was paranoid. After all, what more could she know than the DaVinci Code has already revealed?

I know this is inevitably going to happen theres always a man or woman who goes crazy and does something becuase an alledge book said so It is complete utter bull # she was an artist that flew to close to the sun and dan brown killed her this is just another publicity stunt to hype a book that sucked in the first place.

You're right it could be simply that she was in a downward spiral. However, as I read it, it just didn't "feel" that way to me.
What I meant by her being sane is that up until she took on this project it seemed she was very sane and successful.

i still dont understand how come a 38 year old can turn paranoid just by reading a book. "No history of mental illness"?

is the book fuelling something paranoia or is the paranoia totally separate?

Asprin can kill. It doesn't take too much ... to be too much. It does evil things to the liver. It really can be deadly.

I feel bad for this woman. Perhaps an undiagnosed illness was triggered. Very sad.

damn, it was just a piece of fiction and it drove her to this? wow, imagine what it would have doen to people if it was real