Tragic final days of Mariah Carey’s sister revealed in heartbreaking detail as she failed to fulfill dad’s last wish
On his deathbed in 2002, Mariah Carey’s dad, Alfred Roy, had one wish — that the singing superstar reunites with her “ex” sister, Alison.
Twenty-two years later, and despite years of trying, Alison tragically took her own last breath at 63, without ever fulfilling her father’s poignant final request.
She died with her only friend and companion, David Baker, next to her just past midnight after spending weeks being cared for by a hospice at-home team at her small apartment in Coxsackie in upstate New York in late August.
“Two days earlier I told her I would never forget her, that I loved her and that she would always have a place in my heart,” David told The U.S. Sun.
“In a barely audible voice she said ‘I love you.’
“Those were her last words. By the next morning she had become totally unresponsive. She died two days later.”
In a bizarre coincidence, Alison died on the same day as her estranged mother, Patricia, who she had previously accused in a lawsuit of taking her to Satanic gatherings and allowing her to be sexually abused.
Mariah released a public statement saying how heartbroken she was over both her mother’s and sister’s death.
But David questions the star’s sincerity, saying she could have at least phoned or video-called her sister.
“Mariah has now denied forever the last wish of both her father and her sister,” he said.
In Mariah’s 2020 book The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the star admitted her father’s “dying wish was that my ex-sister Alison and I would speak again.”
Alison frequently talked about being “abandoned” by Mariah.
When she learned her organs were shutting down and she was dying, she turned to David and asked him to try and reach out to her estranged sister.
David had no number for Mariah, but he tried everything he could to let the star know her sister’s life was approaching its end.
He let Alison’s children know the situation, knowing that at least one of the four was close to Mariah and could pass the message on.
Then he took to social media to try and get Mariah’s attention – but still failed.
“Back on August 3 – after Alison was on home hospice care and knew she would die – she told me she wanted to speak to Mariah ‘before it’s too late,'” David said.
“I told her I had no phone number for her sister, but there might still be a way to get a message to her.”
“In a barely audible voice [Alison] said ‘I love you.’ Those were her last words.
David Baker
On August 3, he tweeted, “A sad ending to a tragic life. @mariahcarey’s ‘ex’ sister now receiving home hospice care.”
“The tag would have brought the tweet to her attention and given her a way to reply. But there was no response.”
The tweet got one repost and three likes.
“Mariah says her heart is broken at losing her sister,” he said.
“Alison also was saddened by not being able to connect with Mariah as her life was about to end.”
ALISON’S UNSETTLED PAST
Alison had led a troubled and tumultuous life, marred with drug addiction, homelessness, health issues, sexual abuse and violence.
In 2018, Alison, with David by her side, gave a powerful interview to The Sun in which she talked about how she survived an arson attack and claimed she was taken to occult gatherings as a child and sexually abused by cloaked worshippers.
Even with her traumatic life experiences, David said Alison remained “an extremely intelligent and sensitive soul,” and nothing like the “hapless drug addict” people thought she was.
Despite spending the past nine years at Alison’s side, David has not been told if the family has held a funeral or memorial service for her or if they plan to.
I told her I would never forget her, that I loved her and that she would always have a place in my heart.
David Baker
He believes she may have been cremated – but no one has told him definitively – and he has no idea where her final resting place may be.
“It’s now clear that after after nine years with Alison, I will never know what happened to her remains and when – or even if – there will be any kind of memorial service for her,” he said.
“The last time I saw her was shortly after she passed away. A funeral director moved her from her bed into a body bag. He zipped it up – and she was gone.”
He said he feels cruelly treated having spent years supporting Alison through her complicated health issues – even buying her clothing and paying the rent where necessary.
END OF LIFE
And he was her rock in her final days, advocating for her health and spending hours by her bed side.
“Every time she was hospitalized I would get calls from her saying, in a loud urgent whisper: “I can’t stand it! Get me out of here!” David wrote in his blog, The Carey File, dedicated to Alison.
“This wasn’t helping her recovery or the nurses who answered her frequent pressing of the call button: They were glad when I arrived because, they said, Alison would be calm once I was there.
“So during each of her hospitalizations I would spend as much time as possible with her. And although we didn’t know it until just before she was discharged after a brief stay at the end of July, she was near the end of her life.
“She went home to her apartment on hospice care and died there three weeks later.”
Mariah Carey's statement after losing her mom and sister
On August 26, 2024, Mariah Carey revealed to People that her mom Patricia and sister Alison died on the same day.
“My heart is broken that I’ve lost my mother this past weekend,” she started.
“Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day.
“I feel blessed that I was able to spend the last week with my mom before she passed.”
“I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time,” she concluded.
LOST CHANCES
David says Mariah’s refusal to reconnect with Alison before she died was not the first time the star had ignored her sister when she was in a life-threatening situation.
“The first time was in 2015, when Alison was on life support following emergency surgery to stop a brain hemorrhage after she was hit in on the back of her head with a baseball bat and left for dead during a home invasion at her apartment on Long Island,” David wrote.
“Several members of her family – including her brother Morgan who flew from his home in Hawaii – visited Alison in a hospital in Albany, N.Y.
Mariah was not one of them.
“The second time was in June, 2021, after Alison had emergency overnight surgery for a perforated intestinal ulcer. The surgeon gave her a no more that a 50 percent chance of survival, but after six weeks on two powerful antibiotics to beat sepsis she went home.
“Again, Mariah did not visit or call.
“Now, in 2024, there was a third time, when the chance of survival wasn’t 50 percent; it was zero and there was a last opportunity to grant Alison her years-long wish.”
David added poignantly, “There won’t be a fourth time.”
FAMILY FEUDS
Mariah has not responded to requests for comment from The U.S. Sun but she did open up about her strained relationship with Alison and brother Morgan in her controversial memoir.
In the book, she made several claims about her siblings and said it was “emotionally and physically safer for me not to have any contact” with them.
The singer claimed that her siblings would “sell lies” to the press.
She also alleged in the book that Alison drugged her with valium and pimped her out – claim Alison always vehemently denied right up to her death.
Both Alison and Morgan filed lawsuits against their sister following the release of the book.
Morgan’s lawsuit is still active and this month a judge ordered that depositions be taken from both parties by January 2025.
It is unclear what happened to Alison’s lawsuit.