Prince death probe will be made public
MINNEAPOLIS — Prince talked dirty in song but had a reputation for clean living. He also had an ability to put on shows that were electrifying in their athleticism.
But after his death at age 57 — following a series of canceled shows and a reported emergency plane landing for medical treatment — questions swirled over whether the music superstar had been hiding serious health problems from his fans.
An autopsy was conducted Friday and the body released to his family. Authorities said it could be weeks before the cause of death is released.
But Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson said Prince’s body had no signs of violence when he was found unresponsive Thursday morning in an elevator at Paisley Park, his estate in suburban Minneapolis, and there was nothing to suggest it was suicide. Olson said it appeared Prince had been alone.
“This is certainly a big event internationally and nationally, and I can tell you that we are going to leave no stone unturned with this and make sure the public knows what happened,” the sheriff said at a news conference.
Olson and a spokesman for the medical examiner refused to say whether any prescription drugs were taken from Prince’s home after his death, and they would not comment on a report by the celebrity website TMZ that the “Purple Rain” star had suffered an overdose of a powerful painkiller less than a week before he died.
The sheriff said Prince was last seen alive by an acquaintance who dropped him off at Paisley Park at 8 p.m. Wednesday. He was found by staff members who went to the compound the next morning when they couldn’t reach him by phone.
Emergency crews who answered the 911 call in Chanhassen, about 20 miles outside Minneapolis, could not revive Prince, the sheriff said.
Prince, born Prince Rogers Nelson, had spoken about struggling with childhood epilepsy, and friends said he had hip trouble. His former percussionist Sheila E. told The Associated Press that Prince suffered the effects from years of jumping off risers and speakers on stage while wearing high heels.
“There was always something kind of bothering him, as it does all of us,” she said. “I hurt every single day. You know we’re like athletes, we train, and we get hurt all the time. We have so many injuries.”
Prince’s cousin Chazz Smith said he could not comment on reports about Prince’s health and would not say when he last saw his cousin.
“I can tell you this: What I know is that he was perfectly healthy,” said Smith, who formed a band with Prince when they were kids.
Smith said Prince swore off drugs and alcohol as a kid, and the group they played with saw a lot of music greats fall, so “we decided to never get into that stuff, and no one did.”
TMZ, citing unidentified sources, reported that Prince was treated for an overdose of Percocet while traveling home from concerts in Atlanta last week. The site said his plane made an emergency landing April 15 in Moline, Ill., where he was briefly hospitalized.
Asked whether Prince’s flight made such a landing at the Quad City Airport in Moline, public safety manager Jeff Patterson said Friday that a private Falcon 900 plane made a “medical diversion landing” at 1:17 a.m. that day. He said the plane requested an ambulance at the airport and a patient was taken to the hospital.
Patterson would not identify the patient or the plane’s owner, or provide the aircraft’s tail number.
The singer’s death came two weeks after he canceled concerts in Atlanta, saying he wasn’t feeling well. He then played a pair of makeup shows April 14 in that city, apologizing to the crowd shortly after coming on stage.
At one point early in his first show, he briefly disappeared from the stage without explanation. After about a minute he returned and apologized, saying he didn’t realize how emotional the songs could be. He played the rest of the show without incident, repeatedly jumping up from the piano and pacing around the stage, and performed three encores.
