The toxicology report on Rodney King indicates that he was in a “state of drug- and alcohol-induced delirium” when he fell or jumped into his swimming pool and died on June 17.
San Bernadino County officials said he had been smoking pot and drinking in the hours before his death and the effects of the drugs, combined with a heart condition, led to a cardiac arrhythmia. The effect was that King “thus incapacitated, was unable to save himself and drowned,” the coroner’s report stated.
Investigators combing through King’s house found empty beer bottles, an empty champagne bottle and a partially empty bottle of gin. They also found “s small amount of marijuana in the kitchen and a marijuana cigarette in the backyard. His girlfriend Cynthia Kelly told police he had been smoking marijuana with a friend.
According to the coroner’s toxicology tests, King had a blood-alcohol level of 0.06, while traces of cocaine, marijuana and phencyclidine (PCP) also were found in his system.
Kelly told police that King was pounding on a sliding glass door so loudly that he woke her up.
“She described him making grunting and growling sounds and having frothy secretions coming from his mouth,” the coroner’s investigative report said. “The subject at that time was wearing his underwear down around his knees and then apparently fell backwards onto the planter … just east of the sliding glass door.”
Shortly before 5:30 a.m., Kelly called police after finding King face down at the bottom of his pool.
The report said when Kelley went back into the house to retrieve her cellphone to call 911, she heard a splash. Kelly told police that because she was a poor swimmer, she tried to rouse King by jabbing him with a pitchfork and hoe, the report stated.
According to the police, King’s body showed no signs of trauma, and no traces of blood were found on the concrete pool deck or in the water. When the officers pulled him from the water he was dressed in swim trunks.
The report included observations from neighbors.
Neighbor Sandra Gardea, 31, said she heard King sobbing uncontrollably in his backyard, apparently after having been up all night. She said she heard King’s fiancee trying to coax him back into the house.
“It wasn’t like an argument,” Gardea said. “She was just saying, ‘Get in the house. Get in the house.'”
Then there was silence, said Gardea, whose open bedroom window faces King’s house. A few minutes later, Gardea said, she heard a splash.
