Ashley Judd wrote in a New York Times op-ed that authorities made her feel “like a suspect” as they interrogated her while she held her dying mother’s “laboring body”.
The 54-year-old actress wrote, “It is now well known that law enforcement personnel should be trained in how to respond to and investigate cases involving trauma, but the men who were present left us feeling stripped of any sensitive boundary, interrogated and, in my case, as if I was a possible suspect in my mother’s suicide.”
She added that while she wanted to “comfort” her mother as her “life was fading,” she felt it “mandatory” cooperate with law enforcement.
Ashley also lobbied for privacy, writing in an Instagram post Wednesday (August 31st), " We need better law enforcement procedures and laws that would allow suffering families and their deceased loved one more dignity around agonizingly intimate details of their suffering. Autopsies are public record. So are toxicology reports. We have shared our story so openly, to raise awareness, reduce stigma, to help people identify, and make sure we all know we face mental illness together. What more do folks want us to give of our grief?"
Naomi Judd died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in April.