NYC CORONER: HOFFMAN DIED FROM TOXIC MIX OF DRUGS, INCLUDING HEROIN AND COCAINE
A toxic mix of heroin and other drugs killed Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, New York City officials said Friday (28 FEB. 2014.)
A spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner said Hoffman died from a mix of heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and benzodiazepines (ben-zoh-dy-AZ'-uh-peens), which are psychoactive drugs such as Librium. The death was ruled an accident.
Police had been investigating his death as a suspected drug overdose.
Law enforcement officials have said Hoffman was found Feb. 2 with a needle in his arm, and tests found heroin in samples from at least 50 packets in his Manhattan apartment.
An autopsy in February was inconclusive and medical examiners said more tests were needed.
Hoffman, 46, was found dead with a needle in his arm, and tests found heroin in samples from at least 50 packets in his apartment in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, law
enforcement officials have said. Tests of that heroin had found that it was not cut with a dangerous additive such as fentanyl, a synthetic form of morphine used to intensify the high that has been linked to deaths in other states.
Authorities also found unused syringes, a charred spoon and various prescription medications, including a drug used to treat heroin addiction, a blood-pressure medication and a muscle relaxant.
Hoffman, who won an Oscar for "Capote" and starred in numerous other movies as well as New York stage productions, had been frank about struggling with substance abuse. He told CBS' "60 Minutes" in 2006 that had he used "anything I could get my hands on" before getting clean at age 22. But in interviews last year, he said he'd relapsed, had developed a heroin problem and had gone to rehab for a time.
Investigators have been gathering pieces of the puzzle of how Hoffman may have obtained the heroin and a musician has been charged with keeping a 300-packet heroin stash in a lower Manhattan apartment amid the investigation into Hoffman's death.
Veteran jazz musician Robert Vineberg, who has said he was a friend of the Tony Award-nominated actor, hasn't been charged playing a role in Hoffman's Feb. 2 death and has said he didn't sell him the heroin found in his apartment.
As police followed a tip after Hoffman's death, they said they found about 300 small bags of heroin, worth about $10 apiece on the street, and $1,300 in cash in Vineberg's apartment and music studio.
