BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The circumstances surrounding the death of ex-One Direction singer Liam Payne were suspicious and possibly involved drugs, though there was no sign of a third party being involved, Argentine prosecutors said Thursday.
Payne, 31, who died on Wednesday, first shot to fame as a teenager and grappled with the pressures of global stardom. As the news ricocheted around the world, fans and media swarmed the Casa Sur Hotel in the chic Palermo neighborhood of Argentina’s capital where Payne was found dead after plunging from his third-floor hotel room. All four of Payne’s former One Direction bandmates issued a joint statement saying they were “completely devastated.”
“The memories we shared with him will be treasured forever,” said the letter, signed by Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson. “In time, and when everyone is able to, there will be more to say.”
The Buenos Aires police said they found Payne’s hotel room “in complete disarray” with broken objects and furniture. They found packs of clonazepam, a central nervous system depressant, energy supplements and over-the-counter medications strewn about his belongings. The Argentine public prosecutor said there also appeared to be alcohol and narcotics in the room.
Forensics teams reported that a whiskey bottle, lighter and cellphone were retrieved from the building’s internal courtyard where Payne’s body was found.
The prosecutor said that the autopsy showed internal bleeding and 25 traumatic injuries to his skull, limbs and abdomen, consistent with a fall. It said those injuries alone were enough to cause his death.
There were no signs of a third party being involved, the prosecutor said, but described Payne’s case as “suspicious,” citing the star’s apparent alcohol and drug usage.
The lack of defensive injuries on Payne’s hands indicated that he may have fallen into a state of unconsciousness, the public prosecutor said, contributing to the possibility that Payne “was going through some kind of substance abuse episode” at the time. All signs indicated that Payne was alone at the time of his death, the prosecutor added.
The results of the requested toxicology tests are pending and could take weeks to become public.
Medical examiners listed his cause of death as “multiple trauma” and “internal and external bleeding.” Authorities said they took statements from three hotel employees and two women who had visited Payne in his hotel room hours earlier in an effort to reconstruct Payne’s final moments.
The two women had left the hotel by the time of the incident, the prosecution said.
Hard-core fans, foreign and local, showed up in droves to cry, sing and pay their respects at the hotel where Payne died. A musically inclined devotee broke into One Direction hits, jamming on his guitar as others sang along and filmed with their phones.
Several girls with tear-stained cheeks paused to sit in trance-like silence before a makeshift memorial of candles and colorful flowers spilling prolifically onto the cordoned-off street outside the hotel. Some fans taped up portraits of Payne and handwritten notes with sorrowful slogans like “Always in my heart” on a tree trunk.