The New York medical examiner was due to carry out an autopsy yesterday to determine the cause of death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was found in the bathroom of his West Village apartment amid evidence of drug abuse.
Forensic toxicology reports will be conducted as part of the autopsy in the hope that they will provide a scientific explanation for the actor's death at the age of 46, though results could take several weeks to come through. Hoffman was found with a needle in his arm in his apartment in Bethune Street on Sunday afternoon by his friend, playwright David Katz, and assistant Isabella Wing-Davey who had been alerted after the actor failed to pick up his three children that morning.
According to reports, the extent of Hoffman’s addiction was worse than had previously been publicly known. CNN said that up to 50 small glassine paper bags with a heroin-like substance have been found by investigators, as well as 20 or so used syringes in a plastic cup.
Addiction
In 2006, Hoffman told 60 Minutes on CBS that he had had to confront alcohol and drug addiction when he was 22 years old. He had consumed "anything I could get my hands on, yeah, I liked it all".
Asked by Steve Kroft why he had gone sober then, the actor replied: “You get panicked. I was 22 and I got panicked for my life, it really was, it was just that.”
Last May, TMZ revealed that Hoffman had fallen into addiction again and had been in an east coast rehab center for 10 days. Hoffman had recently been living apart from his longtime partner, Mimi O’Donnell, and their three children: Willa (5) Tallulah (7) and Cooper (10), who remained in the family’s apartment in nearby Jane Street.
As NYPD officers deepened their inquiries, tributes flowed for the Oscar-winning star of Capote who was widely described as one of the greatest actors of his generation. His family issued a statement in which they said: "We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Phil and appreciate the outpouring of love and support we have received from everyone. This is a tragic and sudden loss and we ask that you respect our privacy during this time of grieving. Please keep Phil in your thoughts and prayers."
Mike Nichols, who directed Hoffman in Charlie Wilson's War and Death of a Salesman, said: "No words for this. He was too great and we're too shattered."
"Damn, we lost another great actor," tweeted Spike Lee, who directed Hoffman in 25th Hour.
In addition to trying to piece together the actor’s final hours, a focus of the police investigation will be how, and from whom, he acquired his drugs. He was reportedly seen on Saturday taking money out of an ATM near his apartment, in the presence of two men.
Alongside what appeared to be heroin, prescription medicines including anti-anxiety pills were also found in Hoffman’s apartment.
Painkillers
Authorities across the US have expressed concern about an epidemic of painkiller addiction linked to a resurgence in sales and consumption of heroin.
While prescription medicines are luring thousands of Americans into addiction, many are then moving on to heroin as a result of increasingly tight restrictions around painkillers such as oxycontin. Heroin is dangerous by dint of the impurities with which it is cut on the black market, and because its potency can be wildly fluctuating, making it easy to overdose. – (Guardian service)