ATLANTA — Bobbi Kristina Brown had morphine, cocaine, alcohol and prescription drugs in her body when she went underwater in a bathtub, causing brain damage that left her in a coma for six months, and an autopsy report released Friday said investigators could not determine if her death was intentional or accidental.
The revelations come after months of speculation about how she died, including a wrongful death lawsuit filed by her estate against her partner, Nick Gordon, accusing him of giving her a “toxic cocktail” and putting her face down in water. The medical examiner’s office said it couldn’t figure out whether it was a suicide or a homicide so it classified the manner of death as “undetermined.”
Randy Kessler, an attorney for Gordon, said he was not surprised by the findings.
“He’s always maintained his innocence. I personally hope this puts to rest all the negativity surrounding him,” Kessler said.
Brown, the daughter of singers Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, was found face-down and unresponsive in a bathtub in her suburban Atlanta townhome Jan. 31, 2015, and died at age 22 in hospice care July 26.
The medical examiner didn’t find really high levels of any drug, and the combination of drugs found in her system is not unusual, said Dr. Paul Wax, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center who reviewed the autopsy report at the request of The Associated Press.
“She’d used a bunch of drugs, she went into the bath and she basically drowned in the bathtub,” he said. “That’s pretty much all you can tell from this report.”
She likely used the drugs within 24 to 48 hours before she entered the bathtub, but it’s not possible to say when she took each one or whether multiple drugs were taken at the same time, Wax said.
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