Death
On March 3, 2012, Ronnie Montrose took his own life. The San Mateo County Coroner’s Office released a report on April 6 that confirmed the guitarist died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Ronnie did not leave a suicide note.
Ronnie had a difficult life that led him to be very self-critical and may have contributed to his long-term alcoholism. The toxicology reported a blood-alcohol level of 0.31% (four times the legal limit in California) at the time of death. In early 2012, the deaths of his uncle and Lola (his beloved bulldog whose companionship helped him cope with his cancer recovery) contributed to depression.
On the morning of March 3, 2012 at 11:01 A.M., a series of text messages with his wife Leighsa preceded the suicide:
- "...I have the .38 in my hand and am ready to go."
- "I’m so sorry. Still have the gun in my hand. I’m going on that voyage. I love you beyond measure."
At this point Leighsa called Ronnie and asked him to come to her location. He agreed. After a few minutes, Leighsa decided to not wait and go to Ronnie, but noticed another text on her phone.
- "I can’t. I’ve got the gun to my head."
Leighsa rushed home with her mother where they found Ronnie dead in his living room. He was pronounced dead at noon.
Read more about this topic: Ronnie Montrose
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)
“This morning men deliver wounds and death.
They will deliver death and wounds tomorrow.
And I doubt all. You. Or a violet.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Could any death be so horrible as birth? Or any decrepitude so awful as childhood in a happy united God-fearing family?”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)