A Greenville, South Carolina, police report reveals that Hayden Panettiere was on as many as nine medications at the time of her death, and that her boyfriend showed no visible distress until after the 36-year-old actress was pronounced dead.
Officers from the Greenville City Police Department arrived at an Airbnb rental property around 1:50 p.m. on Sunday to find multiple EMS workers and firefighters already performing CPR on Panettiere, the New York Post reported. The actress, best known for her roles in the television series "Heroes" and "Nashville," was unresponsive. She was pronounced dead at 2:32 p.m., roughly 42 minutes after police arrived on scene.
Two other people were present inside the Airbnb: Brian Hickerson, Panettiere's on-again, off-again boyfriend, and his brother Zach Hickerson. What the responding officer documented about the two men's behavior has drawn scrutiny. Zach Hickerson was "very emotional" as emergency workers fought to revive Panettiere. Brian Hickerson, by contrast, "did not appear upset" during those same efforts, according to the police report.
Brian broke down only after Panettiere was officially declared dead.
During the response, Brian Hickerson showed officers what the police report describes as a "bag of medication" that Panettiere was currently taking. The medication list in the report was redacted, but it appears to reference nine different drugs. The report does not specify whether the medications were prescribed, over-the-counter, or some combination.
The reporting officer noted that Panettiere "did not seem to have any obvious physical reasons to be unresponsive." No cause of death has been determined. South Carolina coroners performed an autopsy the following Monday and said toxicology results could take up to 12 weeks.
Separately, the Associated Press reported that the autopsy found no signs of trauma and that police saw no signs of foul play at the scene. Panettiere was found unresponsive shortly before 2 p.m. on Sunday and was pronounced dead at the scene.
As we previously reported, the autopsy found no signs of trauma, leaving the investigation dependent on toxicology results that remain weeks away.
Breitbart reported that Narcan, a nasal spray used to reverse opioid overdoses, was found in a mattress at the time of Panettiere's death, and that a 911 dispatcher mentioned a suspected overdose. Panettiere reportedly went into cardiac arrest during the incident. The Greenville County Coroner found no signs of trauma that would have contributed to her death.
The presence of Narcan at the scene and the dispatcher's reference to an overdose raise obvious questions about what killed Panettiere. But without final toxicology results, no official determination has been made.
Dispatch audio from the incident offered additional details about the suspected overdose and cardiac arrest that preceded her death.
Panettiere published a memoir titled "This Is Me: A Reckoning" in May 2026, just three months before her death. In it, she wrote openly about a lifetime of addiction, alcohol abuse, and mental health struggles that began during the years she was a child actress and intensified after the birth of her daughter Kaya.
Fox News reported that Panettiere's first rehab stay came in 2015, when Kaya was only four months old. She was diagnosed with postpartum depression. But the treatment traded one dependency for another. Panettiere wrote in her memoir that she walked into rehab addicted to alcohol and walked out dependent on anti-anxiety medication.
In one passage from the prologue, she wrote: "Life is a process that evolves day by day, year by year and, like it or not, you are engaged in a cycle of growth until the moment you take your last breath." Those words carry a weight now that they could not have carried in May.
Her memoir laid bare years of addiction and abuse that had shaped nearly every chapter of her adult life.
In a 2023 interview with Women's Health, Panettiere described the desperation that led her to seek treatment. "I was the one who put myself in the first treatment center. I was drowning," she said.
Panettiere's father, Skip Panettiere, released a statement through ABC News. "It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden," he told reporters. "She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her."
The family had already endured loss. A linked headline in the original reporting referenced the 2023 death of Panettiere's brother, noting that her father "was just starting" to recover from that loss when the actress died.
Just months before her death, Panettiere had also spoken publicly about her custody decisions and postpartum depression in connection with the memoir's release.
No arrests have been reported. No formal investigation beyond the standard death inquiry has been announced. The police report documents who was present and what officers observed, but it does not draw conclusions about what caused Panettiere's death.
Several critical questions remain open. What were the nine medications in the bag Brian Hickerson showed police? Were they prescribed to Panettiere, and by whom? What does the toxicology report, still weeks away, ultimately reveal about what was in her system? And was any formal interview conducted with Brian Hickerson beyond the initial scene observations?
The police report's description of Brian Hickerson's demeanor, calm while first responders worked on the woman he was dating, emotional only after she was declared dead, is not evidence of wrongdoing. But it is the kind of detail that investigators note for a reason, and that the public has a right to weigh as the full picture emerges.
Panettiere died at 36 after a suspected overdose in a rented apartment far from Hollywood, a setting that matched the raw, unglamorous reality she had spent her final months trying to put into words.
A woman who spent years telling the public she was drowning deserved better than to be found unresponsive on a Sunday afternoon with a bag of pills and no clear answers. The toxicology report will eventually speak. Until then, the facts already on the record deserve serious attention, not tabloid spectacle.
