LOS ANGELES, United States: Pop star Liam Payne had multiple drugs including crack cocaine and methamphetamine in his system when he fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina, according to initial toxicology reports cited by US media on Monday.
The British singer and former One Direction member died last week at the age of 31, after plunging from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires.
ABC News and TMZ said a cocktail of drugs called “pink cocaine” — containing methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA — had been found during a partial autopsy, citing anonymous sources familiar with the preliminary tests.
Crack cocaine and benzodiazepine were also listed.
An “improvised aluminum pipe to ingest drugs” was also found in the room, ABC reported.
Payne — who was found dead after staff called emergency services twice to report a guest “overwhelmed by drugs and alcohol” was “destroying” a hotel room — had spoken publicly about struggles with substance abuse and coping with fame from an early age.
Post-mortem results indicated that he was alone at the time of the fall and “was going through an episode of substance abuse,” prosecutors had previously said.
The singer suffered “multiple traumas” and “internal and external hemorrhaging,” they said.
The Clarin newspaper published photos last week of what it said was the interior of Payne’s room, with white powder visible on a table next to a piece of aluminum foil and a lighter. The pictures also showed a television with a broken screen.
The prosecutor’s office said substances that appeared to be “narcotics and alcoholic beverages” had been found in the room, amidst pieces of broken furniture and other objects.
A hotel employee suspected of providing Payne with drugs on the day he died has been interviewed by officials, but not arrested or charged, local police told ABC News.
Payne was a member of One Direction, the hugely successful pop group whose fame began in 2010 on the British television talent contest “The X Factor.”
One of the highest-grossing live acts in the world, the group went on indefinite hiatus in 2016.
Payne went on to enjoy solo success, but in recent years spoke openly about struggles with alcoholism and fame.
He was the father of a seven-year-old boy shared with Girls Aloud star Cheryl Tweedy.
Toxicology tests show Liam Payne had ‘multiple’ drugs in system: reports
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Toxicology tests show Liam Payne had ‘multiple’ drugs in system: reports
- The British singer and former One Direction member died last week at the age of 31, after plunging from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires
Parrots rescued as landslide-hit Sicilian town saves pets
- Residents queued up at a fire service command point just outside the high-risk, evacuated “red zone” to be accompanied inside to rescue pets
- Some locals feed their animals but leave them where they are, because they have no place to take them
NISCEMI, Italy: Pino Terzo Di Dio was in tears as firefighters carried his beloved parrots out of his home, which has been cordoned off as his town teeters on a cliff edge.
They were the latest pets to be saved by firefighters from hundreds of homes that were evacuated in the Sicilian town of Niscemi after a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) long stretch of hillside collapsed.
“They are scared,” Di Dio told AFP, his voice breaking as the emergency workers carried the parrots — four cockatiels and a parakeet — out of his house in two cages, buffeted by the wind.
The town, built on unstable terrain, was battered by a powerful storm which hit southern Italy last week.
There were no deaths or injuries from Sunday’s landslide, but experts say the gulf could extend when it rains again.
- ‘Lost everything’ -
Residents queued up at a fire service command point just outside the high-risk, evacuated “red zone” to be accompanied inside to rescue pets or gather belongings from important documents to clean underwear.
Some locals feed their animals but leave them where they are, because they have no place to take them.
Di Dio said his bird feeders were full but one of the parrots “tends to knock the water onto the floor,” and feared they may have been without water for days.
The 53-year-old said he had been moving between friends’ houses since the disaster.
“It’s been four days that I’ve barely washed. I smell like a goat, but that’s fine,” he said.
All his attention was on the yellow and grey birds, aged between seven and 13, and where they will go now.
“Let’s hope that someone with a kind heart will take care of them. The important thing is that they treat them well,” he said.
“I don’t have a home, I’ve lost everything.”
- ‘Help us’ -
Firefighter Franco Turco said emergency workers had rescued “quite a few dogs, cats — and now parrots.”
The team was working out how to rescue horses in fields below the baroque town, where deep fissures caused by the landslide were complicating access.
In the meantime, some 24 firefighters have carried out 80 missions to recover belongings in the red zone, which extends 150 meters from the cliff face.
But not even they enter the 50 meters buffer zone before the edge.
Some residents “have cried, have hugged us,” he said.
In the same building as Di Dio’s parrots, a woman who did not want to be named pulled a shopping trolley and black plastic bags full of belongings out of the house and onto the street.
In her arms she carried a ceramic statue of the Madonna, which had once stood at the foot of her stairs.
“May the Madonna help us,” she said.
