Tom Petty, the chart-topping singer and songwriter, died in October from an accidental drug overdose as a result of mixing medications that included opioids, the medical examiner-coroner for the county of Los Angeles said on Friday, ending the mystery surrounding his sudden death last year. The coroner said that Petty’s system showed traces of the drugs fentanyl, oxycodone, temazepam, alprazolam, citalopram, acetyl fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl. But Petty’s official death certificate, released about a week later, listed his cause of death as “deferred” pending an autopsy. Drug deaths involving fentanyl more than doubled from 2015 to 2016, according to the governmental account of nationwide drug deaths last year. Lil Peep, the 21-year-old emo rapper who died of an accidental overdose in November, was found to have fentanyl, among other prescription drugs, in his system as well.

Source: The Irish Times January 20, 2018 12:56 UTC