sts show that Prince died of an opioid overdose, a law enforcement official said Thursday.
The official, who is close to the investigation, spoke on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press because he was not authorized to speak to the media. No other information was given.
Prince, who was 57, died April 21 at his home, Paisley Park, in Chanhassen, Minn. An employee found him unresponsive that morning in an elevator on the first floor of the building.
Reports of Prince’s drug use and a dependence on Percocet stunned both his peers and his fans. And now with test results, Prince is arguably the opioid abuse epidemic’s most famous victim, along with actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died in February 2014 after overdosing on heroin and other drugs.
“We need to see the Prince in all of us. We need to see the vulnerability. We’re all vulnerable here,” explained Dr. David Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. “It’s a wakeup call for how we view these drugs.”
Dr. Kessler, who served with the FDA from 1990 to 1997 and has been the dean of medical schools at Yale University and UC San Francisco, said it's a mistake to separate people using opioids legally from those who are getting them illegally. People start, he said, because they are told the drugs are going to help, but often aren't advised about the long-term consequences of addiction.
“The most important thing is not to look at this through a lens of ‘This is bad behavior,’” Dr. Kessler said. “We all are susceptible to these medications.”
With help from federal authorities, the Carver County Sheriff’s Department continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding Prince's death -- and how The Purple One got his drugs.
According to court records obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Prince saw a Minneapolis-area doctor, Michael Todd Schulenberg, the day before he died, and Schulenberg was at the Paisley Park compound to deliver test results on the morning the musician was found dead.
The doctor, who specializes in family medicine, had also seen Prince earlier in the month, on April 7, and told investigators he had prescribed medication. The singer was supposed to fill the prescription at Walgreens, although it is unclear from the warrant whether he did.
Prince’s health appeared to be a concern in the days leading up to this death. Attorney William Mauzy told reporters that his client Dr. Howard Kornfeld was contacted by Prince’s representatives, who were seeking help, the day before the singer died. Dr. Kornfeld specializes in addiction treatment and runs Recovery Without Walls in Mill Valley, Calif.
Mauzy told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that Dr. Kornfeld couldn’t clear his schedule and instead had sent his son Andrew to Paisley Park in his place. Andrew was carrying a small amount of buprenorphine, or Suboxone, a synthetic drug used to treat opioid addiction. “The doctor was planning on a lifesaving mission,” Mauzy added.
Dr. Kornfeld declined to comment when reached by The Times.
According to authorities, Prince was last seen alive at 8 p.m. April 20, when someone dropped him off at Paisley Park. The musician was apparently left alone that night, without staff members or security.
Prince, a devout Jehovah’s Witness, was “a very private person,” said Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson. “I don’t think it would be unusual, for him to be there by himself.”
When members of his staff couldn’t reach him Thursday morning, they went to Paisley Park, where an employee found him unresponsive in an elevator on the first floor. A transcript of a 911 call released by the sheriff’s department provided a hint of the frantic scramble that followed.
“Yeah, we need an ambulance right now,” a man, now identified as Andrew Kornfeld, told a 911 dispatcher. “Um, we're at Prince's house.... The person is dead here.”
The caller said he didn't know the address of Paisley Park and apologized for the delay, saying everyone with him was “just distraught.” The dispatcher asked: “Are you with the person who's — ” The caller responded: “Yes, it's Prince.”
Sheriff's deputies arrived at 9:43 a.m. Olson said he did not recall seeing a phone in the elevator or a cellphone near the body. Prince was pronounced dead at the scene at 10:07 a.m.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is assisting the local sheriff’s office in trying to determine whether Prince used painkillers or other controlled medications that should have been obtained from a licensed doctor, or were improperly prescribed to him, a law enforcement official told The Times.
“The question is how did [Prince] get the drugs -- or did someone bypass the prescription process. Doctors are permitted to dispense but only subject to stringent requirements,” said Harry Nelson, an L.A. attorney who counseled two of Michael Jackson’s doctors following the singer’s death.
Nelson said there is pressure on state medical boards to investigate cases where over-prescribing is suspected, and potentially take action against the doctor or doctors involved. “I've worked with a lot of doctors who have treated celebrities and my experience is that celebrity has a real allure,” Nelson said. “When you're in the presence of someone known to the whole world, it feels like the regular rules don't apply.”
Days before Prince was found unconscious at Paisley Park Studio, he’d given his final performances in Atlanta. Despite not feeling well and reportedly fighting the flu, the performer told the concert promoter that he “would give it his all.”
“I knew after the show that he was fatigued because normally he does an after party and he didn't,” said Lucy Freas, who heads up Atlanta’s Rival Entertainment, which had presented Prince’s April 14 shows. “He wanted to go straight home, so he left the same night.”
The performer left the venue after those back-to-back gigs just before midnight and headed home to Minnesota, but his private plane took a detour along the way for an unscheduled landing in Moline, Ill., just after 1 a.m. Prince was unresponsive, according to an airport official.
Firefighters and paramedics spent 18 minutes attending to the singer on the tarmac, before whisking him to a hospital. “An unresponsive person is typically someone unconscious and not responding to efforts to revive them,” explained Jeff Patterson, public safety director at the Quad Cities Airport.
Prince was hospitalized for a few hours before departing in the early morning of April 15 for his home in Minnesota. Six days later, he would be found dead.
As questions continue to surround the artist’s death, his family is planning an official memorial service in August -- and also sorting out his estate. So far, no will has surfaced for Prince. Under Minnesota law, his siblings -- including his sister, Tyka Nelson, and several half-siblings -- stand to inherit the entertainer's assets. Prince's two marriages ended in divorce, and his son, Boy Gregory, died in infancy in 1996.
A Minnesota judge appointed corporate trust company Bremer Trust to oversee his multimillion-dollar estate. Among the assets at stake is a catalog of music that would likely include a royalty stream for some of pop music's most recognizable tunes, such as “Purple Rain,” “When Doves Cry” and “Kiss.”
The trailblazing performer sold more than 100 million records over his career, fusing rock, pop, funk and R&B and demonstrating an audacious, idiosyncratic sense of style and willingness to court controversy.
A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, he won seven Grammy Awards and an Academy Award for original song score for the 1984 film “Purple Rain.” He also wrote hit songs for other artists, including Sinead O'Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” and The Bangles’ “Manic Monday.”
"We appreciate the public's patience and have been comforted by your outpouring of love, support and condolences,” Prince’s family said in a statement regarding a planned public event. “We look forward to sharing with the world this celebration of, and farewell to, our Prince.”
The Associated Press and Times staff writers Christie D’Zurilla, Matt Pearce, Richard Winton, Del Quentin Wilber and Peter King contributed to this story.
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