VANCOUVER — The actor famous for playing the stoic Russian navigator in the original Star Trek struggled Thursday to keep his voice steady as he announced his son’s body had been found in a park, dead from an apparent suicide.
Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov in the 1960s cult hit, said he has received hundreds of emails since he and his wife held a news conference the day before to ask for help in finding their son, a man they said struggled with depression his whole life and who had been missing since Feb. 14.
Koenig implored those people to reach out.
“If you’re one of those people and you feel you can’t handle it anymore, you know, if you can learn anything from this, it’s that there’s people out there who really care,” Koenig said, his voice shaking, his face haggard.
Andrew Koenig, 41, was best known for his role as Richard “Boner” Stabone in the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains. His parents said Wednesday he had been off his medication when he vanished during a visit to Vancouver, a city he came to love after shooting a television episode here years ago.