Prince's death: New photos, video show singer on the day before he died
Pictures and videos of Prince in the days before he died were released by Minnesota police and prosecutors Thursday, hours after authorities announced that no criminal charges would be filed against anyone in connection with the singer's accidental opioid overdose.
With the end of the investigation came the publication of a huge stash of documents, pictures and videos,10 gigabytes of which posted to the website of the Carver County Sheriff's Office.
READ MORE: Prince's laptop, diet, weight loss and distress highlight captivating police documents
Prince was 57 when he was found alone and unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park studio compound on April 21, 2016. His death sparked a national outpouring of grief and prompted a joint investigation by Carver County and federal authorities to find out how and why he had died.
An autopsy found he died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin. But Carver County Attorney Mark Metz said Thursday that Prince thought he was taking a common painkiller, Vicodin, but instead was taking counterfeit Vicodin laced with fentanyl.
Metz said it remains a mystery how Prince obtained the deadly pills he was taking or from whom, and there was not enough evidence to prosecute anyone for a crime in connection with his death.
The pictures and videos of Prince and the inside of Paisley Park on the day he was found dead do not provide any insight to those questions, either.
One photo shows Prince on April 20, 2016, the day before his death at the office of Dr. Michael Todd Schulenberg, the local family physician who had been treating him after being referred by his patient, Kirk Johnson, one of Prince's oldest friends and top aide.
On Thursday, Schulenberg agreed to pay $30,000 to settle a federal civil claim for knowingly writing a prescription in someone else's name (Johnson's), which violates the Controlled Substances Act.
Several other images show the music superstar’s body on the floor of his Paisley Park estate, near an elevator. He is on his back, eyes closed with his head still partly in the elevator. His right hand is on his stomach and left arm on the floor.
The documents include interviews with Prince’s inner circle, including Johnson, his bodyguard and estate manager, who told investigators that he had noticed Prince “looking just a little frail.” He said did not realize his boss had an opioid addiction until he passed out on a plane a week before he died.
“It started to all making sense, though, just his behavior sometimes and change of mood and I’m like oh this is what, I think this is what’s going on, that’s why I took the initiative and said let’s go to my doctor because you haven’t been to the doctor, let’s check it all out,” Johnson said, according to a transcript of an interview with investigators.
A paramedic told a police detective that after the second shot of naloxone, Prince “took a large gasp and woke up,” according to the investigative documents. He said the singer told paramedics, “I feel all fuzzy.”
A nurse at the hospital where Prince was taken for monitoring told detectives that he refused routine overdose testing that would have included blood and urine tests. When asked what he had taken, he didn’t say what it was, but that “someone gave it to him to relax.” Other documents say Prince said he took one or two pills.
Days later, Johnson took Prince to see Schulenberg for flu symptoms. The doctor ran some tests and prescribed other medications to help him. A urinalysis came back positive for opioids. At that point, his team contacted California-based addiction specialist Howard Kornfeld, who dispatched his son Andrew to Minnesota. He was among those who found the singer's body on the morning of April 21.
Kornfeld told investigators that Prince was still warm to the touch when he was found, but that rigor mortis had begun to set in.
The documents also show that Prince’s closest confidants knew he was a private person and tried to respect that, with Johnson saying: “That’s what (angers me) cause it’s like, man, how did he hide this so well?”
Johnson said after that episode, Prince canceled some concerts as friends urged him to rest. Johnson also said that Prince “said he wanted to talk to somebody” about his addiction.
One of Prince’s sisters took to Twitter Friday, expressing disappointment about the way the death investigation was handled. Sharon L. Nelson tweeted: “There is so much about Prince’s death and this investigation that troubles me and millions of #prince fans around the world.”
In another tweet, she references an article noting that Prince’s computer wasn’t searched immediately, saying “This was disappointing and hurtful. Let’s hope the Federal Gov’t does better.”
Contributing: The Associated Press