EXCLUSIVE: RFK Jr.'s Troubled Wife Mary 'Didn't Want to Die' and Hadn’t Been Talking About Suicide Prior to Death — Stoking Fears Hanging Was 'Rehearsal' Gone Wrong

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s troubled ex-wife may have tried in vain to free herself from a noose in a desperate attempt to stop her own suicide, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

Mary Richardson Kennedy had reportedly not been talking about taking her life in the days and weeks before she hanged herself in 2012, according to a new book.

Mary was married to the Kennedy scion for 16 years before he filed for divorce in May 2010. The couple had four children together.

However, on May 16, 2012, Mary was found dead in a barn at her home in Bedford, New York. Her death was ruled a suicide by hanging.

An autopsy revealed that she had antidepressants in her blood, but there was no trace of alcohol. Now, a new biography on the controversial Health and Human Services secretary suggests she might have had a change of heart, and struggled to loosen her tightening noose.

"It’s conceivable that she didn’t want to die," a friend revealed in the explosive new book, RFK JR.: The Fall and Rise. "It's conceivable that it was a rehearsal.

"A lot of times people put a bag over their head and see what it might feel like. She stood on a chair and put a rope around her neck."

In the autopsy report, the Westchester County medical examiner said that Mary had died from asphyxiation by hanging. Her remains were taken to the Medical Examiner’s Office with "a beige rope around the neck" and "the knot present on this rope lying on her back with 9 loops," according to the new book.

However, Westchester County Medical Examiner Dr. Kunjlata Ashar noted in the autopsy report that the troubled 52-year-old architect had bruised fingers and blue fingernails, indicating a possible struggle to stop the fatal process.

The doctor said: "The fingers from both of Mary's hands were between the rope and the neck. The fingernails were cyanotic blue because of compression of the fingers, as they were between the rope and the neck.

It's also possible, Dr. Ashar wrote, that the "fingers caught in the noose may suggest that she was trying to place the rope around her neck."

Shortly before her death, Mary discovered her husband's hidden journals, in which he bragged about relations with at least 37 other women behind her back in alleged trysts dating back to 2001.

After discovering the tomes, she reportedly "hid" them as "insurance," as she and RFK Jr. entered into a messy divorce.

One entry penned during the summer of 2001 read,"Everything that I coveted – a beautiful wife and kids and loving family, wealth, education, good health and a job I love yet always on the lookout for something I can't have."

He continued: "I want it all. No matter how much I have – I want more."

According to the New York Post, which first obtained RFK Jr.'s diary in 2013, the politician regularly wrote about his "lust demons" in the X-rated red journal.

He seemed to blame his demons on Mary, blasting her for driving him to cheat amid their supposedly lackluster intimate life.

"Our bed is an unfriendly place," Kennedy wrote. "She hates it when I go to bed with her, and will never have s-- at night. She rarely speaks to me of anything but scheduling."

As Radar previously reported, Mary, who had battled alcoholism throughout her life, had appeared "depressed and despondent" shortly before her suicide.

After her death, Kennedy told police in a statement, "She told me she was sorry for everything. She said I was right about everything, and everything was her fault."