Doris Adkisson, matriarch of the Von Erich family, passes away

Doris Adkisson, the wife of Fritz Von Erich and the mother of the six Von Erich kids, passed away last night according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer. She lived on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.

Doris outlived five of her sons and her ex-husband in a life filled with tragedies. The Von Erich kids, Jack, David, Kerry, Mike, and Chris all passed away, leaving Kevin as the only surviving member of this legendary wrestling family.

The Von Erich family tragedies started when Jack, the first son, drowned at just the age of six in 1959. David died in 1984 after an apparent heart attack according to the family however many put questions on that cause of death and a drug overdose is speculated to be the real cause. Mike committed suicide in 1987 by overdosing on a tranquilizer. Chris also committed suicide in 1991 with a self-inflicted gunshot wound and finally their brother Kerry, known as the Texas Tornado in the WWE, continued the suicide trend in 1993 with a fatal gunshot to the heart. Their father Fritz died in 1997 of lung cancer that had also spread to his brain.

The story of the Von Erich family is one of the saddest in professional wrestling. In 2009, the Von Erich family was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.