Report Finds No Drugs in Youth’s Body : Coroner: Northridge boy who killed his father and an officer before shooting himself was not under the influence of alcohol or narcotics.

Troubled teen-ager Christopher Golly was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he fatally shot his father and then ambushed Los Angeles police with an assault rifle, killing rookie cop Christy Lynne Hamilton, the county’s top medical examiner said Thursday.

Christopher killed his father, beckoned police to his Northridge home by calling 911 to report the slaying, then opened fire on them before ultimately killing himself early on the morning of Feb. 22.

After Christopher’s suicide, there was widespread speculation among his friends and classmates that the youth’s rampage was the result of his use of methamphetamine, a drug that can cause users to become violent and temperamental.

But Los Angeles County’s chief medical examiner-coroner, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, said blood test results indicated that the 17-year-old had no alcohol or drugs of any kind in his system--not even residual levels--on the day of the shootings.

“All we can say is it was not present, that there was no evidence that he had taken it in the recent past,” Sathyavagiswaran said. He said the blood tests were taken the day after Christopher killed himself as an elite unit of Special Weapons and Tactics officers waited outside the Amestoy Avenue home where he had just killed his father, Steven, 49, with an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle.

Methamphetamine stays in the bloodstream between 12 and 36 hours, but once a person dies, whatever level was in the blood at the time of death remains constant, Sathyavagiswaran said. Christopher is believed to have killed himself shortly after shooting his father in the head, calling 911 and then opening fire on Hamilton and other officers as they responded to calls of shots fired at the house.

Sathyavagiswaran said the tests, which were “more or less final,” also looked for drugs such as cocaine, narcotics and angel dust, or PCP.

When told the test results Thursday, a woman who lives in the Golly home said she knew “all along” that drugs were not the root cause of Christopher’s bloody rampage.

“I don’t think it made a difference at all,” said Connie McGovern, 21, who was present when the boy killed his father, before fleeing the house. “Either way, he would have done it.”

Asked why Christopher killed his father and lured police into an ambush, McGovern said his frequent use of methamphetamine, or speed, for about a year may have been a contributing factor, but other factors also were at play.

“Only Chris knows why he did it,” McGovern said. “When you’re young, everybody dislikes police. You aren’t mature enough to respect what they are doing.”

Hamilton had graduated from the Los Angeles Police Academy just four days before answering the call to go to the Gollys’ house, and had been on the force for just a month before becoming only the second female Los Angeles police officer to die in the line of duty. She was shot once, just above the armhole in her bullet-resistant vest, after getting out of her squad car.

Hamilton died about an hour later at a Northridge hospital, with her father--a retired Los Angeles police detective--and Police Chief Willie L. Williams at her side. Her death has attracted national attention and calls by gun control advocates for curbs on the kind of military-appearing semiautomatic rifles that Christopher used to kill her.