Liam Payne's Death Not Being Ruled a Suicide, According to Prosecutor

Liam Payne didn't commit suicide, as far as the prosecutor in charge of his case is concerned. This week, in an official notification translated from Spanish to English, the investigating National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office No. 14 in Argentina, led by prosecutor Andrés Esteban Madrea, said it doesn't believe the former One Direction member intended to die.

Payne sadly passed away last month after falling from a three-story balcony at a hotel in Bueno Aires — an incident which immediately underwent investigation by authorities — and reports from across the globe have subsequently tried to piece together Payne's final moments to understand the tragic sequence of events that unfolded for the pop star.

But now, the prosecutor says it must "rule out the possibility of a conscious or voluntary act" on Payne's part since "in the state he was in, he did not know what he was doing."

Following the Oct. 16 tragedy, police detained a hotel worker accused of supplying Payne drugs and raided the home of another acquaintance, who was also detained. An examination revealed Payne sustained 25 injuries after falling. An autopsy said the former One Direction-er was under the influence of several drugs, including pink cocaine.

But as newly reported by E! News Thursday (Nov. 7), the prosecutor's latest conclusions about the tragedy say, in part, "Although other medical background information from the victim's clinical history must still be analyzed, the phenomenon of the lack of defense or self-preservation reflex in the fall, together with other relevant data from his consumption, allow us to conclude that Liam Payne was not fully conscious or was experiencing a state of noticeable decrease or loss of consciousness at the time of the fall."

The findings add, "For the prosecution, this situation would also rule out the possibility of a conscious or voluntary act on the [victim's part], since, in the state he was in, he did not know what he was doing nor could he understand it." (Read the original statement here, as translated by Us Weekly.)

After his death, fans first learned through the media that the One Direction member had evidently "jumped" from the third-story balcony of his room at the Argentine capital's Casa Sur Hotel, per a Buenos Aires Security Ministry statement. A subsequent autopsy then revealed that Payne died after suffering a debilitating skull fracture.

Yet, immediately adding mystery was a report about the autopsy from the New York Post that showed Payne may have been unconscious when he fatally fell; the tabloid also alleged that two women had been in the hotel room with the singer in the hours before his death.

Tags

Liam Payne, One Direction, Music