On December 10, 1968 Thomas Merton was at a Red Cross retreat facility named Sawang Khaniwat in Samut Prakan, a province near Bangkok, Thailand, attending a monastic conference. After giving a talk at the morning session, he was found dead later in the afternoon in the room of his cottage, wearing only shorts, lying on his back with a short-circuited Hitachi floor fan lying across his body. His associate, Jean Leclercq, stated: “In all probability the death of Thomas Merton was due in part to heart failure, in part to an electric shock.”

Since there was no autopsy, there was no suitable explanation for the wound in the back of Merton’s head, “which had bled considerably.” Arriving from the cottage next to Merton’s, the Primate of the Benedictine order and presiding officer of the conference, Rembert Weakland, anointed Merton.

He was 53 years old.

His body was flown back to the United States on board a U.S. military aircraft returning from Vietnam. He is buried at Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in Bardstown, Kentucky.

In 2018, Hugh Turley and David Martin published “The Martyrdom of Thomas Merton: An Investigation,” presenting the evidentiary record’s refutation of claims of accidental electrocution, and suggesting Merton was assassinated for his political opposition to the Vietnam War. A subsequent book by Turley and author John Howard Griffin — Thomas Merton’s Betrayers: The Case Against Abbot James Fox — presents documentary evidence of manipulation and coverup by the Catholic Church and Merton’s political foes.

The Spring 2024 issue of The Catholic Historical Review published “The Official Thai Reports on Thomas Merton’s Death.” The official cause of death was a natural cause: “sudden heart failure,” not “accidental electrocu-tion.” The police report states that Merton was already dead before he came into contact with a faulty fan that was found lying across his body.