Renfro died of heroin overdose

Actor Brad Renfro died last month of an accidental heroin overdose, coroner’s officials said Friday.

Renfro was found dead with injection marks on his hands Jan. 15 at his Wilshire-area home, said Craig Harvey, spokesman for the L.A. County coroner’s office. The cause of death was listed as “acute heroin/morphine intoxication.”

Harvey said Renfro’s friends reported that the 25-year-old had been clean in the weeks leading up to his death. If that is true, Harvey said, it is possible that the actor injected a dose of heroin typical for his days of heavier drug use.

At the time of his death, Renfro was still on probation on drug charges to which he pleaded guilty after a Dec. 22, 2005, arrest. He was one of 14 people who bought fake heroin balloons from undercover officers in downtown L.A.

Renfro, a Tennessee native, first garnered the attention of moviegoers as a child star in the 1994 legal thriller “The Client.” He went on to star in movies such as “Apt Pupil,” “Sleepers” and “Bully.”

-- Richard Winton