The posting continued, “although he struggled for years to overcome his sorrow, he finally succumbed, and during the night of the 4th of January 2011, in his Boston residence, took his own life, plunging his family and friends into great sorrow.’’ 
 
 “It is with immense grief that we would like to inform our compatriots of the passing away of Prince Alireza Pahlavi,’’ according to the posting by his older brother, Reza Pahlavi. Alireza... (Associated Press) 
 
 "Once again, we are joined with mothers, father and relatives of so many victims of these dark times for our country," the shah's oldest son, Reza Pahlavi, wrote on his website in announcing the death of his brother, Alireza Pahlavi. Fardia Pars, who is close to Reza Pahlavi, said by phone from Paris that Alireza Pahlavi went into a deep depression following his the death of his sister Leila in 2001, who was found in a London hotel room at age 31 after overdosing on barbiturates. "He became a different person," he said. Pahlavi's depression "grew over time _ his departure from Iran, living in exile, the death of his father and then his sister to whom he was very close," said Nazie Eftekhari, who works in Reza Pahlavi's office in Washington and is a close family friend. The shah was overthrown in the 1970s by a fundamentalist Islamic revolution that remains in power, bedeviling the current American administration with reported plans to produce nuclear weapons. A neighbor, Dan Phillips, 42, said he did not know Pahlavi personally but recognized his picture and described him as someone who was very social and "who always dressed very dapper."
– The youngest son of the late shah of Iran killed himself in his Boston home this morning, his family says. Alireza Pahlavi, 44, apparently shot himself, reports the Globe. “Like millions of young Iranians, he too was deeply disturbed by all the ills fallen upon his beloved homeland, as well as carrying the burden of losing a father and a sister in his young life," said a family statement. It refers to his sister Leila, who died of a drug overdose in 2001. Pahlavi's father, an American ally, was overthrown in 1979 and died the following year in exile in Egypt. A family friend says Alireza Pahlavi never recovered from the death of his sister and that his depression "grew over time," reports AP. He had studied music and history at Princeton, then did postgraduate work at Harvard. He kept a relatively low-key profile, unlike his brother Reza Pahlavi, a US attorney who frequently speaks out against the Iran regime. Click for more on Alireza Pahlavi.