AceShowbiz - Kate Spade's sister Reta Saffo has broken her silence after the handbag creator passed away in an apparent suicide. In an email that she sent to the Star, she revealed that her sister suffered from mental illness for the last three or four years and was self medicating with alcohol.

Reta wrote that her apparent suicide "was not unexpected by me," adding that her family had tried very hard to help her to no avail. "I'd come so VERY close to getting her to go in for treatment. I'd spoken with them on the phone (not telling them exactly who the patient would be). They agreed to fly in and talk with her and take her with them to the treatment center," she said.

"She was all set to go -- but then chickened out by the morning," she continued, recalling that she told her sister she would be a patient too if Kate went with them. In the end, she didn't go to the treatment center in fear that it would affect the image of her "happy-go-lucky" brand. "She was definitely worried about what people would say if they found out," Reta noted.

According to Reta, Andy Spade even assisted in trying to coax Kate into treatment. However, "nothing ever came of it," she said. "After numerous attempts, I finally let go," she added. "Sometimes you simply cannot SAVE people from themselves! One of the last thing she said to me was, 'Reta, I know you hate funerals and don't attend them, but for me would you PLEASE come to MINE, at least. Please!' I know she perhaps had a plan, but she insisted she did not."

Reta suggested that her sister might have planned to commit suicide after watching news of Robin Williams' death in 2014, saying that she "kept watching it and watching it over and over. I think the plan was already in motion even as far back as then."

Police confirmed Kate was found hanging from a red scarf in her bedroom at her and Andy's Park Avenue home in Manhattan on Tuesday morning, June 5. The designer left a suicide note addressed to her only child, Frances Beatrix, and husband.