Prince didn’t know he was taking fentanyl
Prosecutor announces no charges will be filed in death of music superstar
Music superstar Prince died two years ago because he thought he was taking the common painkiller Vicodin when, unbeknownst to him, it was laced with deadly fentanyl, authorities said Thursday.
“He thought he was taking Vicodin and not fentanyl,” Carver County Attorney Mark Metz said at a news conference in Prince’s home county.
Just short of two years after Prince’s death, Metz announced that no one will be charged with a crime because there’s no evidence showing how he got fake Vicodin laced with fentanyl and no evidence he knew that’s what it was.
Metz, the top prosecutor in the suburban Minneapolis county, told reporters results of a “painstaking and thorough” two-year investigation found that Prince did not know he had become addicted to fentanyl, and neither did anyone around him.
“To actively charge a crime requires probable cause and a reasonable likelihood of conviction. The bottom line is that we simply do not have sufficient evidence to charge anyone,” Metz said.
Metz said there was no evidence that pills found at Prince’s home laced with fentanyl were prescribed by a doctor.
He said Prince had long suffered from “significant” pain and had been prescribed other kinds of opioids but, as an “intensely private person,” he did not want anyone to know he was addicted or that narcotics were prescribed in his name. His friends and doctor followed his wishes, Metz said.
Despite the high profile of the case and Prince’s worldwide fame, Metz said he could not factor that into a charging decision. As a county attorney, he said, he is obliged to follow rules based on evidence sufficient to prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
“There’s no doubt that actions of individuals around (Prince) will be criti- cized in coming days, but suspicion and innuendo are categorically insufficient to support bringing charges,” Metz said.
The what of Prince Rogers Nelson’s death — high concentrations of fentanyl were found in his body — has been known since shortly after he was found unresponsive in an elevator at Paisley Park, his home/studio complex in Chanhassen, Minn., on April 21, 2016. He was 57.
But the why has been a mystery: Was there a crime committed in connection with Prince’s death, and if so, who was responsible? That has been the subject of two years of investigation by the Carver County Sheriff ’s Office, working with federal agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The news that the famously cleanliving Prince had died of a drug overdose was a shock to the music world. Immediately, questions swirled.
Why was Prince taking fentanyl? Who gave it to him or sold it to him? Did he obtain it illegally? Did he know it was fentanyl? Did a doctor prescribe it, and if so, why? And where did it come from?
Last month, local police presented their case to prosecutors to review. On Tuesday, Peter Ivy, chief deputy county attorney, told USA TODAY an announcement was planned in “the very near future.”
A year after Prince’s death, search warrants and affidavits from the investigation were made public, showing that narcotic medications were found throughout Paisley Park, most of which he did not have prescriptions for, some in the name of Kirk Johnson, and some hidden in over-the-counter aspirin bottles.
Johnson was a sometime drummer for Prince, a friend since the 1980s and his bodyguard. He was the best man at Prince’s first wedding and the estate manager at Paisley Park. One of the few people who had unrestricted access to the complex, he was among those who discovered Prince’s body.
More than 100 white capsules labeled “Watson 853” — a mixture of acetaminophen and hydrocodone, a prescription drug classified as a narcotic — were hidden in Aleve and Bayer Aspirin bottles and found in numerous rooms inside Paisley Park. CVS prescription bottles under Johnson’s name were found in the dressing room and mirror room; each bottle contained several different kinds of controlled substances.
But the search warrants shed no light on the mystery of where Prince got the fentanyl that killed him.
The medical examiner’s one-page report on his death said only that Prince died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl, a powerful painkiller that has played a role in a national surge in opioid deaths.
In March, a toxicology report from Prince’s autopsy, obtained by The Associated Press, showed he had an “exceedingly high” concentration of fentanyl in his body.
But the full report on Prince’s autopsy remains sealed under Minnesota law, so it’s not clear whether Prince had any medical conditions that contributed to his death.
Famous for his abstemious approach to living — he said he didn’t use drugs and didn’t drink — how could he end up dead of a drug overdose? His fans wondered: Was Prince a secret drug addict?
We don’t know, and we may never know if Prince’s family declines to release the full report, which they have the right to keep secret for another 28 years.