Writer Hunter S Thompson kills himself

HUNTER S Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularised a new form of fictional journalism in books such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, shot and killed himself on Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.

"Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan Thompson said in a statement.

Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, a personal friend of Thompson, confirmed the death.