Hayden Panettiere Autopsy Results Just Dropped

Hayden Panettiere died from the toxic effects of fentanyl and four other drugs, and her death has been ruled an accident, the Greenville County Coroner's Office said Tuesday, Sept. 22.

The office's statement lists the cause of death as "toxic effects of fentanyl, 4-ANPP, Alprazolam, Methocarbamol, and Quetiapine." An autopsy performed by a board-certified forensic pathologist turned up no signs of trauma that would have contributed to her death. The actor was 36.

With the cause and manner established, the coroner administratively closed its case. The Greenville Police Department said the same day that its own investigation has not been closed.

A 911 call at 1:51 p.m. at the Judson Mill Lofts

The coroner's office laid out the timeline in its statement. On Aug. 16, 2026, at approximately 1:51 p.m., a 911 call came in reporting a cardiac arrest at 701 Easley Bridge Road in Greenville, South Carolina. First responders and EMS crews arrived and found a woman in cardiac arrest.

Paramedics started advanced cardiac life support measures. They did not work. She was pronounced dead at 2:32 p.m.

"The decedent has been identified as Hayden Leslie Panettiere, 36, of California," the office said. "Panettiere was found unresponsive inside the residence, where she had been temporarily staying." The address is an apartment at the Judson Mill Lofts, a converted textile mill property, and the coroner's office opened a parallel investigation with the Greenville City Police Department after the initial emergency response.

The five substances named in the findings

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid. 4-ANPP is a chemical intermediate used to illegally manufacture fentanyl, and it is often detected alongside the drug itself.

Alprazolam is a benzodiazepine sold under the brand name Xanax. Methocarbamol is a prescription muscle relaxant sold as Robaxin. Quetiapine is an antipsychotic prescribed for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder, and it goes by the brand name Seroquel.

The coroner's office declined to comment beyond its written statement.

Greenville police say detectives are still working

Police in Greenville said Tuesday that the coroner's report is one piece of the picture and that their independent investigation remains active and ongoing.

"Our detectives will continue to follow leads and gather information as we work toward resolving this case," the department said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has also been looking into the circumstances of her death. Asked about it, the agency said that in order to "protect the integrity of ongoing investigative work, DEA does not comment on specific investigations."

In August, a police spokesperson said the preliminary work had "not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances," and that "an acquaintance of Ms. Panettiere placed the 911 call."

Who was at the apartment that afternoon

Panettiere's on-again, off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, was inside the apartment when she died. A police report obtained by CBS News says Hickerson showed officers "the bag of medication" she was "currently on." The list of substances in that bag was redacted in the report.

Hickerson's brother, Zach, was also there. The report identifies the Hickersons as the callers the department had described in August only as an acquaintance. Zach Hickerson told TMZ that Brian gave Panettiere Narcan after the two of them found her unconscious, and that they performed CPR until paramedics arrived.

TMZ reported that she had traveled to Greenville from Los Angeles with Hickerson before her death. Her Los Angeles home was searched by federal drug agents on Aug. 25, the outlet reported, citing sources who said officials were looking for evidence tied to her drug dealer and believed at the time of the search that she had taken an oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl just before she died. Those sources also told TMZ that Panettiere and the dealer exchanged a "slew of messages" about drugs, and that the DEA has focused on those messages.

How a case like this gets built

Bill Bodner, a former DEA special agent who spent 32 years in the agency's Los Angeles field office and worked on the overdose death investigations of Michael Jackson and Matthew Perry, told NBC News in August that investigators were probably trying to rebuild Panettiere's last days.

"They will use forensics to exploit her telephone, try to re-create the last two or three days of her life from looking at text messages, looking at phone calls, looking at interaction with people on social media," Bodner said.

He added: "Once there's a timeline of what she was doing before her death, it becomes easier to kind of find where that drug distribution took place that killed her."

Hickerson's court record and his lawyer's statement

Hickerson, an aspiring actor from South Carolina, pleaded no contest in April 2021 in Los Angeles to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend, and was sentenced to 45 days in jail and four years of probation, according to court records. Six other counts, including assault with a deadly weapon, were dismissed. Panettiere sought a restraining order against him in 2020. The outcome of that request is unclear.

Their relationship appeared to have ended in 2020 amid allegations of domestic violence. Panettiere's mother, Lesley Vogel, told NBC News the two were still seeing each other when she died.

Sloan Ellis, an attorney for Hickerson, said in a statement in August that police had found no signs of foul play and that the death remained under investigation. "Out of respect for Hayden's loved ones and the ongoing investigation, there will be no further comment at this time," Ellis said.

A career that started at 11 months

Panettiere started acting as an infant, appearing in television commercials and then on the soap operas "One Life to Live" and "Guiding Light." In 2000 she played a coach's daughter in "Remember the Titans" alongside Denzel Washington.

Her breakout came on the NBC superhero series "Heroes," where she played the regenerating cheerleader Claire Bennet. She starred on the musical drama "Nashville" from 2012 to 2018 as an ambitious, volatile country singer, earning two Golden Globe nominations, and she played Kirby in 2011's "Scream 4" and again in 2023's "Scream VI."

Other credits include Disney's 2005 ice skating movie "Ice Princess," opposite Michelle Trachtenberg, and 2006's "Bring It On: All or Nothing." She stepped away from the industry in 2018 and came back in 2023 with the sixth "Scream" film.

The memoir she published four months before she died

In May, Panettiere published "This Is Me: A Reckoning," a memoir that became a bestseller. She wrote about addiction, postpartum depression, physical abuse and recovery, and about growing up famous.

She wrote that she was given "happy pills" at 16 to get through media interviews. "They were the gateway drug that ushered me toward the good of pharmaceuticals and the downfall of addiction," she wrote. She also recounted a doctor telling her during treatment in 2020 that she would "be dead within five years" if she did not stop drinking.

Panettiere wrote that her life began to unravel after she had a daughter with the retired Ukrainian heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in 2014, and that she drank heavily to cope with postpartum depression and Klitschko's distance. She entered rehab and gave him custody of their daughter, Kaya, in 2018. In the memoir she called not living with her daughter "the most gut-wrenching experience of my life." Kaya is 11.

Speaking with CBS News' Gayle King in May, she said she hoped the book would reach people. "I really wanted to share with the world that they don't have to be afraid. That they can live their truth. They can be imperfect," she said. Asked how she was doing, she said she was still working on herself all the time and that she was better and healthier than she had been in a long time.

At a May appearance promoting the book, she described a reader telling her that her honesty about mental health had made a difference. "Someone said to me, 'Because you've talked about your mental health, you gave me the courage to be honest about mine and get myself help, and you saved my life.' And I was like, 'This is worth it, I can hopefully leave the world a better world than I found it,'" Panettiere said.

What has happened since August

Her father, Skip Panettiere, announced her death on Aug. 16. Her publicist, Kasey Kitchen, said at the time that an investigation was ongoing and that no cause or manner of death had been determined.

Copies of her memoir sold out across Greenville on what would have been her 37th birthday. Klitschko shared a tribute after her death. At the Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept. 14, she was honored during the In Memoriam segment.

The coroner's file is finished. The police file is not.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use, the SAMHSA National Helpline is free and confidential at 1-800-662-4357. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is at 1-800-799-7233. Postpartum Support International can be reached at 1-800-944-4773.