The death of Matthew Perry is still under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department and other U.S. authorities, more than six months after he was found unconscious and face-down in the “hot water side” of his home’s swimming pool in October 2023.
The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed the joint investigation in a statement emailed to USA Today on Tuesday. According to reports from NBC News and ABC News, a key part of the investigation is the source of the ketamine that led to Perry’s death. ABC said detectives are interviewing people who may have information about the source of the drug.
“Based on the medical examiner’s findings, the Los Angeles Police Department, with the assistance of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Postal Inspection Service, continues to investigate the circumstances of Mr. Perry’s death,” the LAPD statement said.
The DEA declined to comment, citing a policy that prohibits it from discussing “ongoing investigations.” USA Today has reached out to the U.S. Postal Service Inspection Service for comment.
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office released Perry’s autopsy report in December. His death was ruled accidental and the cause was listed as “acute effects of ketamine,” with drowning, coronary artery disease, and the effects of buprenorphine being contributing factors.
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Matthew Perry’s cause of death revealed:‘Friends’ star dies from ‘acute effects of ketamine’
Perry’s 29-page autopsy report, obtained by USA Today at the time, said buprenorphine is “an opioid-like medication used to treat opioid addiction and acute and chronic pain.” The report said there were “no signs of fatal trauma and no foul play is suspected.”
What we know about Matthew Perry’s death in October 2023
On October 28, 2023, the Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed to USA Today that firefighters responded to Perry’s Pacific Palisades home at 4:07 p.m. on the day of his death and found “an unconscious adult male in a freestanding hot tub.”
According to an autopsy report conducted one day after the actor’s death, the last person to see Perry alive that day was his personal assistant, who was staying with him when he returned from a pickleball game.
The assistant had left Perry’s home for several hours to run an errand and discovered his body at 4:00 PM, with responding officers pronouncing him dead at 4:17 PM.
The autopsy found no pills, drugs or medications near the pool, and no alcohol, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin or fentanyl in his system.
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An autopsy revealed that Perry had taken “high levels of ketamine.”
According to the DEA website, ketamine is a “dissociative anesthetic” that “has hallucinogenic effects and distorts visual and auditory perception.”
The autopsy report described Perry as “a 54-year-old male with a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease/emphysema, diabetes and past drug use but reported to have been drug-free for 19 months. A long-time heavy smoker but currently abstained. Received intravenous ketamine therapy, most recently reported one and a half weeks prior to death.”
The coroner said the amount of ketamine found in his system was as high as 3,540 nanograms per milliliter. “General anesthesia levels typically range from 1,000 to 6,000 nanograms per milliliter,” the report noted.
The report states that Perry “was reportedly receiving ketamine infusion therapy for the treatment of depression and anxiety,” but that “the half-life of ketamine is three to four hours or less, so the ketamine remaining in his system at the time of death could not have come from that infusion therapy.” The autopsy report also states that the method of ingestion is unknown.
Contributor: Kimi Robinson, USA Today
