LOS ANGELES : Widow of Toto Drummer Asks for Forensic Exam
The widow of Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro sought a court order Tuesday to force Los Angeles County officials to send her late husband’s remains and effects to other forensic experts for examination.
The Superior Court petition filed on behalf of Susan Porcaro states that she has hired an attorney to investigate the cause of her husband’s death, which a coroner’s report attributes in part to cocaine use. The petition seeks the release of her late husband’s blood and tissue samples, clothing, butts of cigarettes he had smoked the day he died and autopsy photos. She wants the items released to a Ventura County coroner and several private experts.
Porcaro died Aug. 5 after suffering a heart attack at his home in Hidden Hills. At the time, authorities attributed his death to an allergic reaction to a pesticide, Dursban, that he had been spraying in his back yard.
But the coroner’s report of his death, while listing his death as accidental, indicates that the heart attack was brought on by cocaine abuse.
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