The death of Matthew Perry is not a closed case. The Los Angeles police confirmed this Tuesday that there is an open investigation that aims to determine the origin of the ketamine that ended the life of the protagonist of Friends in October 2023. The investigation has the collaboration of the DEA, the federal anti-narcotics agency, which can shed light on how the actor obtained the substance found in his body during the autopsy.
The Coroner’s Office reported in December that Perry had been undergoing ketamine infusion therapy for some time, a drug approved for decades by the FDA, the federal food and drug regulator in the United States. The substance can be found in a nasal spray in hundreds of clinics throughout the United States. The actor had been sober for 19 months after a past marked by alcohol and other substance abuse and had turned to ketamine to combat depression and anxiety. Perry’s last therapy was taken a week and a half before his death.
The analysis of the 54-year-old interpreter’s body showed that his blood had levels of ketamine similar to that of general anesthesia during an operation. This despite the fact that several days had passed since Perry went to her last treatment and despite the fact that ketamine has a half-life of “three or four hours” within the body.
The Los Angeles police have indicated this afternoon that a criminal investigation remains open after the findings of the autopsy carried out on October 29, one day after the death. In the search of the actor’s residence, no illicit substance was found and only traces of a medication used to control opiate dependence were found in his blood.
The police investigation is also being carried out with the help of the postal service, which can help trace the path of the ketamine that ended the life of Chandler Bing in the television comedy. Authorities have not specified whether Perry purchased the drugs through the mail or if they were sent to one of several clinics in the Los Angeles metropolitan area that offer the substance as an antidepressant treatment.
On the Saturday of his death, Perry had been playing pickleball until eleven in the morning. His assistant last saw him alive around 1:30 p.m. at the residence in the exclusive Pacific Palisades neighborhood. The actor got into his jacuzzi and when his employee returned home he found him floating face down in the water. The attendant entered the pool, pulled his head out of the water and called emergency services.
The forensic doctor assured that the ketamine in the stomach also caused the actor to have cardiovascular overstimulation and breathing problems, factors that made it easier for him to drown. The paramedics were the ones who pulled the body out of the water. Perry was pronounced dead on the spot that afternoon.
According to TMZ, the entertainment media, the authorities have conducted some interviews with some Hollywood celebrities as part of the investigation. The digital publication states that detectives have approached some people who have had a public battle against drugs and addictions. These, however, are not necessarily the source that provided the ketamine to Perry, but they could know where the substance came from. At the moment, no arrests have been made linked to this death, one of the most unexpected of 2023.
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