Anne Heche had cocaine in her system when her car fatally crashed into a Los Angeles home. Photo / AP
Anne Heche had cocaine in her system when her car fatally crashed into a Los Angeles home. Photo / AP
Emmy award-winning actress Anne Heche had cocaine in her system when her car fatally crashed into a Los Angeles home, according to the latest autopsy and toxicology report.
The report also detected fentanyl along with traces of cocaine in Heche’s body, TMZ reports.
Heche crashed into the LA home at a speed of 145km/h, causing a raging fire that trapped the actress in her car for 45 minutes as dozens of firefighters attempted to get her out.
The report additionally states there was no alcohol in Heche’s system at the time of the crash, despite the photograph of her taken just moments before the wreck occurred showing what appeared to be a bottle of vodka inside her car.
Judging by the timestamp on the LA Fire Department’s recordings, the first of what resulted in 59 firefighters arrived at the scene at 11.01am on August 5 to find Heche trapped inside her car.
The scene where Anne Heche crashed her car into a house. Photo / Getty Images
Once the owner of the house Lynne Mishele was pulled from the burning home, officials incorrectly assumed that there was no one else inside the house, where the car could not be seen.
After discovering the vehicle, emergency responders had to wait for a heavy duty tow truck to pull the wreckage out, resulting in Heche only being rescued around 11.49am.
She acquired extremely bad burns and fell into a coma shortly after being taken to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Centre.
A lack of oxygen caused the actress to suffer a “severe anoxic brain injury”, according to a statement released by her family and friends.
Debris on the driveway of the home where actress Anne Heche crashed her car into a home. Photo / Getty Images
Seven days later she was declared brain-dead but was kept on life support so that her organs could be donated.
On August 14, Heche’s life support machine was turned off and she was cremated four days later.
A coroner stated on August 17 that Heche died from inhalation injuries and burns, and ruled that her death was an accident, according to Daily Mail.
Mishele, who was in her California home with her pets at the time of Heche’s car crash, has since filed a lawsuit against the late actress’ estate for US$2 million ($3.17 million).
Mishele recently commented on the fatal accident, saying she had delayed the lawsuit when she found out she had cancer in September.
In the lawsuit, Mishele said that she was a matter of feet away from the actress’ car when it crashed into her home, along with her dogs and pet tortoise.
What transpired after the crash was highly publicised and confusion over her estate and its inheritance ensued.
The late actress died without a formal will in place, resulting in a battle over the inheritance between her two sons, born to different fathers.
Actress Anne Heche and James Tupper. Photo / Getty Images
A week ago, a court gave full control of Heche’s estate to her son Homer Heche Laffoon, despite objections from the actress’ previous partner James Tupper – who claimed that jewellery to the value of US$200,000 ($316,684) had “gone missing”.
LA Superior Court Judge Lee Bogdanoff named Laffoon as the permanent administrator of the estate, denying the motion by Tupper - the father of Heche’s 13 year-old son Atlas - to have an independent administrator assigned.
Additionally, the judge dismissed Tupper’s objection that Laffoon was “not suitable” to run the estate. The actor claimed that, due to Lafoon’s young age, unemployment status and estrangement from his late mother at the time of her death, he shouldn’t have control of the estate.
