The Gonzo Legend: Hunter S. Thompson and the Case That Won’t Die
- Rebecca Joan Neisler
- Oct 9
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 13
More than twenty years after the death of Hunter S. Thompson — the iconoclastic journalist and author who pioneered gonzo journalism — Colorado authorities have reopened the book on his final chapter. The original ruling, issued in 2005, determined his death to be a suicide, but lingering inconsistencies and speculation have kept the case alive in public imagination.
On September 30th, 2025, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) issued a public statement regarding its independent review of Hunter S. Thompson’s death, a process requested by his widow, Anita Thompson. Officials emphasized that no new evidence of foul play has emerged and they remain confident in their original ruling. Yet, the decision to reopen the file accentuate the enduring tension between myth and mortality — and our collective refusal to let Thompson’s story fade quietly into history.
Who Was Hunter S. Thompson—and Why His Death Still Matters
Hunter Stockton Thompson (1937–2005) wasn’t just a writer; he was a cultural event. His works — Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, and his political dispatches for Rolling Stone — rewired American journalism. He invented Gonzo, a style where the reporter becomes part of the story — a hallucinatory fusion of truth and performance, chaos and confession. Thompson didn’t just document the American Dream; he dismantled it with a typewriter and a .44 Magnum grin.
When he died on February 20, 2005, at his Woody Creek home near Aspen, Colorado, the news was met with both shock and a grim sense of inevitability. He was 67, long disillusioned with the American experiment he once chronicled so vividly. Yet for those who revered him, the official story — a self-inflicted gunshot wound — never quite sat right.
"Counselor"
The evening of February 20 began ordinarily. Thompson was home; his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson were in the house. Anita, his wife, had gone to a local gym after a brief argument. Around 5:40 p.m., Hunter called Anita. He asked for help drafting an article for ESPN. While they were still on the line, Anita heard what she assumed was typing. It wasn’t. It was the sound of him cocking a .45-caliber pistol.
Moments later — a single shot.
At first, the family thought something had fallen. Juan, his son, went to check and found his father slumped at the kitchen table. Police were called immediately. In an odd grief-fueled burst, Juan stepped outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air — a spontaneous, surreal echo of his father’s lifelong theatricality.
When investigators arrived at the scene, they found a piece of paper in Thompson’s typewriter.
It bore one single word: "Counselor."
Its meaning remains a mystery.
A responding officer noted the absence of a spent cartridge in the gun — a small detail that later birthed an avalanche of conspiracy theories suggesting tampering, coercion, or cover-up. None were ever substantiated, but the speculation never died.
"Football Season is Over"
Days later, Anita found a handwritten note in a drawer. It was brief, resigned, and unmistakably Hunter. It read:
'Football Season Is Over.
No More Games.
No More Bombs.
No More Walking.
No More Fun.
No More Swimming.
67.
That is 17 years past 50.
17 more than I needed or wanted.
Boring.
I am always bitchy.
No Fun — for anybody.
67.
You are getting Greedy.
Act your age.
Relax — This won't hurt.'
The note, later published by Rolling Stone, captured Thompson’s fatalistic humor and his lifelong obsession with controlling the terms of his own exit. Close friends—including his longtime collaborator and illustrator, Ralph Steadman—said they weren’t surprised. As Steadman recalled in an interview with Esquire.
I always knew he would commit suicide...He said to me, 'I'd feel real trapped in this life, Ralph, if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any moment.' — Ralph Steadman
Exit, Stage, Fireworks
At Thompson's request, his ashes were fired from the top of a 153-foot cannon tower topped with a red fist clenching a peyote button— the iconic Gonzo fist. He designed the symbol during his 1970 “Freak Power” campaign while running for sheriff in Pitkin County. The cannon, built with funds from his friend Johnny Depp, launched his remains into the Colorado sky to the sound of Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky and Bob Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man. It was the perfect curtain call: absurd, excessive, and cosmic.
Why Reopen the Case?
Two decades later, Anita Thompson requested an independent review by the CBI. The move, according to officials, is not a criminal reinvestigation, but a case review — a procedural re-examination meant to ensure all records and evidence were handled properly. Pitkin County Sheriff Michael Buglione invited the agency to conduct the review, describing it as an act of transparency rather than suspicion. “It’s about closure,” he told BBC News. For Anita and others, the question isn’t necessarily what happened, but whether every detail of his final act was properly understood — and whether the mythology surrounding it obscured the truth.
Myth, Mortality, and the Price of Freedom
Revisiting Hunter S. Thompson’s death may reveal no new evidence, no hidden conspiracies — only the same uneasy poetry that always defined his life. He lived on the edge between satire and sincerity, and self-destruction and autonomy. In death, that boundary remains blurred.
Whether the CBI finds anything new or not, the very act of reopening the file speaks to the gravitational pull of Thompson’s legend — the way he still forces America to look at its own contradictions.
Hunter S. Thompson’s story was never about neat endings. It was about the manic, beautiful refusal to be tamed. And maybe that’s why the world still can’t stop reading his last line.
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” ― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
The 2005 Police Report
Resources
Brinkley, D. (2005, September 22). Football season is over: Hunter S. Thompson, 1937-2005. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/football-season-is-over-hunter-s-thompson-1937-2005-171034/
Colorado Bureau of Investigation. (2025, September). CBI conducting case review into death of Hunter S. Thompson. https://cbi.colorado.gov/news-article/cbi-conducting-case-review-into-death-of-hunter-s-thompson
Conrad, P. (2005, August 22). 'Cannon' still standing. The Aspen Times. https://www.aspentimes.com/news/cannon-still-standing/
Halpert, M. (2025, October). Hunter S Thompson’s death to be reviewed by Colorado Investigators 20 years later. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrqpqe81qjo
Harrell, E. (2005, February). Hunter lived, died ‘by his own rules’. The Aspen Times. https://www.aspentimes.com/news/hunter-lived-died-by-his-own-rules/#:~:text=The%20Pitkin%20County%20coroner%20confirmed,was%20swarming%20with%20national%20media
Manning, S. (2014, April 24). Meet the Guy Who Brought Hunter S. Thompson's Work to Life. Esquire. https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/interviews/a28393/ralph-steadman-interview/
The Associated Press. (2005, August 20). Ashes of Hunter S. Thompson blown into sky above star-studded well-wishers. Summit Daily. https://www.summitdaily.com/news/ashes-of-hunter-s-thompson-blown-into-sky-above-star-studded-well-wishers/
The Gonzo Foundation. (n.d.). Photos. https://www.thegonzofoundation.org/photos/#lightbox[group-1631]/2/
