Coroner rules Hayden Panettiere's death an accidental fentanyl overdose

Hayden Panettiere, the actress known for Heroes and Nashville, died of an accidental overdose caused by the toxic effects of fentanyl and four other drugs at a Greenville, South Carolina, apartment on Aug. 16.

The Greenville County Coroner's Office released the finding on Sept. 22 and ruled the manner of death an accident. With cause and manner established, the office administratively closed its case. The Greenville Police Department said the same day that its own investigation has not closed.

Dispatchers received a 911 call reporting a cardiac arrest at about 1:51 p.m. on Aug. 16 at 701 Easley Bridge Road in Greenville, where Panettiere had been staying temporarily, according to the coroner's release. First responders found a woman in cardiac arrest and began advanced cardiac life support, but resuscitation was unsuccessful, and she was pronounced dead at 2:32 p.m. FOX Carolina identified the building as the Judson Mill Lofts.

What the autopsy found

An autopsy by a board-certified forensic pathologist found no signs of trauma that would have contributed to the death, the coroner's office said. Panettiere was found unresponsive inside the residence. The release identified her as Hayden Leslie Panettiere, 36, of California, and said the coroner's office had opened a parallel investigation with the Greenville City Police Department.

Greenville police said earlier that a preliminary investigation had not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances. Sgt. Diana Munoz told Oxygen after the findings were released that the coroner's report was one component of an investigation that remains active.

Our detectives will continue to follow leads and gather information as we work toward resolving this case.

Panettiere's on-again, off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, and his brother, Zach, were at the apartment and made the 911 call, according to a police report obtained by CBS News. Brian Hickerson showed officers the bag of medication Panettiere was taking, though the list of substances was redacted. Zach Hickerson later told TMZ that his brother gave Panettiere Narcan, which can reverse opioid overdoses, after they found her unconscious.

The DEA's involvement

The Drug Enforcement Administration is assisting in the investigation, Munoz confirmed to Oxygen, declining to give further detail. Fox News Digital reported that the agency had been contacted and was helping Greenville investigators. TMZ reported on Sept. 15, citing unnamed sources it described as involved in the investigation with direct knowledge, that the DEA believes Panettiere died after taking an oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl.

Bill Bodner, a former DEA special agent who probed the overdose deaths of Michael Jackson, Matthew Perry and other celebrities, told NBC News in August that investigators were likely trying to reconstruct Panettiere's final days. He spent 32 years in the agency's Los Angeles field office.

They will use forensics to exploit her telephone, try to re-create the last two or three days of her life from looking at text messages, looking at phone calls, looking at interaction with people on social media

Once that timeline exists, Bodner said, it becomes easier to find where the drug distribution that killed a person took place.

TMZ reported that messages between Panettiere and a dealer, continuing up to the week she died, had become a centerpiece of the DEA's work, citing unnamed sources. Her representatives told Oxygen that recent reports based on unnamed sources amounted to unverified hearsay, and that conflicting information continued to circulate. They asked for patience while the investigative process unfolds.

Five substances, one ruling

Toxicology testing determined the official cause of death, more than a month after Panettiere died. The release does not say where any of the five substances came from, or which of them Panettiere had been prescribed.

TMZ reported, citing its sources, that Panettiere took various pills with her on the flight from Los Angeles to South Carolina the night before she died, and that Hickerson traveled with her. Neighbors at her West Hollywood home told TMZ they had seen two women and a man come to her unit individually with small bags over a period of years and suspected they were dealers. The man came the week she died.

Text messages have helped authorities identify dealers in other cases, TMZ noted, including the death of the rapper Mac Miller, where two dealers were sent to prison.

The boyfriend and his lawyer

Hickerson pleaded no contest in April 2021 to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend and was sentenced to 45 days in county jail, of which he served 33, and four years of probation, court records show. Panettiere sought a restraining order against him in July 2020, and his sentence carried a five-year protective order. Sloan Ellis, a lawyer for Hickerson, said in August that police had found no signs of foul play and that the death remained under investigation.

A career that began early

Panettiere began appearing in television commercials as a young child and had her breakout role on the NBC science-fiction series Heroes. She earned two Golden Globe nominations for portraying an ambitious and volatile country musician on Nashville. Her other credits included the Scream franchise, Bring It On, Remember the Titans and Ice Princess.

I really wanted to share with the world that they don't have to be afraid. That they can live their truth. They can be imperfect

Panettiere said she became addicted to opioids as a teenager and to alcohol in her 20s, and wrote about addiction, physical abuse, postpartum depression and recovery in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning. She wrote that her life began to spiral after she had a daughter with the Ukrainian heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko in 2014, and that she drank heavily to cope. She later entered rehab and gave Klitschko custody of their child in 2018.

What is still open

The Greenville Police Department has not announced any arrests or charges, and it did not say when its investigation might conclude. Munoz declined to give additional detail about the DEA's role. Neither the coroner's office nor the police department has publicly identified a source for the fentanyl.

Her representatives said in a statement to US Weekly that people who were not close to Panettiere were using her death to fuel gossip and speculation about a situation they knew little about, and called it disrespectful to her memory. They asked anyone with legitimate information to contact law enforcement rather than speculate on social media, and said those closest to her were cooperating with the investigation.

Her memoir sold out across Greenville stores on Aug. 21, what would have been her 37th birthday, FOX Carolina reported.

The coroner's finding does not mention oxycodone, and police have not publicly confirmed TMZ's account of what the DEA believes. Munoz said detectives would keep following leads. The SAMHSA National Helpline is 1-800-662-4357. Postpartum Support International can be reached at 1-800-944-4773, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.