DOLORES DROWNED IN THE BATH
Singer’s death was ‘tragic accident’ due to alcohol intoxication, coroner finds
THE lead singer of The Cranberries drowned in a ‘tragic accident’ in her hotel bath after a bout of early morning drinking, an inquest heard yesterday.
Dolores O’Riordan’s lifeless body was found at the Hilton Hotel in London’s Park Lane as the multi-million selling songwriter fought an ‘obsessive’ alcoholism problem.
The inquest at Westminster Coroner’s Court heard how a maid found the 46-year-old submerged and face-up while wearing pyjama bottoms and a long-sleeve vest top.
After arriving at the hotel on January 14 this year, where she was staying during a short recording session, Ms O’Riordan opened the minibar in room 2005 at 2.10am the following morning and called her mother at around 3am.
A 35cl bottle of champagne and five miniature bottles of spirits were later found in the room, as well as several bottles of prescription medication and an empty packet of cigarettes.
Yesterday’s inquest, on what would have been the performer’s 47th birthday, heard how the singer had a blood-alcohol level of 330mg per 100ml – four times over the UK’s 80mg legal driving limit. In Ireland the limit is 50mg.
Police officers who attended the scene made desperate attempts to revive her via CPR, but the singer was eventually pronounced dead at the hotel at 9.16am.
PC Natalie Smart, who was the first responder to attend the scene, said: ‘I saw Mrs O’Riordan submerged in the bath with her nose and mouth fully under the water.
‘There was a third of a bottle of champagne and several miniature bottles of alcohol. There was a quantity of tablets left that were in the bottles.
‘We did a full skin and body check; no marks, no blood in the water, no injuries. There were no signs of disturbance and the door was locked from the inside.
‘There was nothing left behind – no note.’
Coroner Shirley Radcliffe said Ms O’Riordan’s death was a ‘tragic accident’ caused by drowning due to alcohol intoxication.
Recording the Limerick singer’s death as an accident, she said that there was no evidence of any suspicious circumstances or signs of a note.
Dr Radcliffe said: ‘There is no evidence that this was anything other than an accident. It seems to be solely a tragic accident.’
London’s Metropolitan Police said there were no signs of disturbance in the room, which was locked from the inside when the cleaner entered assuming that it was empty.
The hearing was attended by the singer’s mother Eileen, brother PJ and her sister-in-law, who joined arms and bowed their heads as the coroner read her verdict.
The inquest heard the singer, whose fame was said to have placed a ‘heavy burden’ on her, had called her mother at 3am on the day of her death.
Speaking to the media after the inquest, her brother said: ‘We are just glad it is over.’
The singer, from Limerick, had spent months trying to cope with her bipolar disorder, a mental illness that caused her to suffer a ‘manic’ episode.
The inquest heard how the illness was under control at the time of her death and in ‘partial remission’, while the star was ‘very much looking to the future’.
But the singer had recently acknowledged to doctors that her drinking was ‘excessive’ and continued to struggle with alcoholism-related relapses.
A ‘partner’ who was staying in the adjoining room to Ms O’Riordan in the hotel raised concerns that the singer had started drinking heavily again at the time of the London
‘Nothing left behind – no note’
stay, the inquest heard. It was not disclosed whether this referred to Ms O’Riordan’s boyfriend Olé Koretsky, a musician she had been with since 2017 until the time of her death.
While living in San Francisco in September 2017, the inquest heard that the singer began writing an apparent suicide note after drinking a ‘huge’ amount of alcohol and taking a prescription medication.
She fell unconscious and was taken to hospital where she made a ‘full recovery’.
Ms O’Riordan had been seeking treatment from US psychiatrist, Dr Robert Hirschfield, who spoke to her by phone on St Stephen’s Day last year.
In a report of the conversation, he said: ‘She is doing well, not drinking, she was a little sad on Christmas Day… no thoughts of suicide, anxiety modest.’
He advised the singer to continue abstaining from alcohol and to maintain use of three types of prescription medication, including Lorazepam, to treat her depressive condition.
Ms O’Riordan met another psychiatrist at home in Ireland, Dr Séamus Ó Ceallaigh, just a week before her death. He said that the singer had been in ‘good spirits’ and that her bipolar disorder was under control.
She acknowledged to him that her alcohol use had been ‘excessive’ but Dr Ó Ceallaigh said that the star had also undertaken ‘long periods of sobriety’.
A toxicology report found that Ms O’Riordan had consumed more than the therapeutic amount of one of her medications at the time of her death – but it was not a fatal amount.
Her use of two other medications was within the recommended limits. The singer, who was forced to cancel a tour with The Cranberries in 2017, was due to record a solo album in New York the week after her death.
The coroner said: ‘She was looking forward to the future with a considerable number of plans, looking forward to her professional life, the release of two albums and seeing her children.’
Ms O’Riordan had three children – Taylor Baxter, 20, Molly Leigh, 17, and 12-year-old Dakota Rain – with her ex-husband Don Burton, a tour manager for Duran Duran, whom she married in 1994 before they split in 2014. In a statement issued after the hearing, the band’s remaining members, Noel Hogan, Fergal Lawler and Mike Hogan, said: ‘Today we continue to struggle to come to terms with what happened.
‘Dolores will live on eternally in her music. To see how much of a positive impact she had on people’s lives has been a source of great comfort to us.’
The Cranberries were one of the most successful alternative rock bands of the 1990s, selling more
‘Looking forward to the future’
than 40 million albums and garnering acclaim for singles such as Dreams and Linger.
Ms O’Riordan had been in London at the time of her death to record a cover version of the band’s 1994 hit single Zombie with heavy metal band Bad Wolves.
Written after the IRA bombing in Warrington in 1993 that killed two children, the single was a furious rebuke of political violence and won an Ivor Novello award.
O’Riordan – who was also a member of alternative rock group Dark – had been working on a new studio album with The Cranberries in the months before her death.
Sales and streams of The Cranberries’ back catalogue rocketed by 1,000% in the days after her death.