KAMPALA Feb 25 (Reuters) – An American television
producer found dead on a hotel balcony in Uganda last week died
after taking contaminated cocaine, police and a private
investigator said on Saturday.
An official toxicology report confirmed the narcotic was in
Jeff Rice’s blood, dispelling initial suspicions the
father-of-two known for his work on the U.S. show “The Amazing
Race”, had been poisoned by attackers.
Rice, who was found slumped over a table bleeding through
the nose and mouth, died of asphyxiation, a post mortem showed.
Drug users who fall unconscious risk inhaling vomit.
“Rice … used cocaine which had lethal additives and that’s
what killed him,” Uganda police spokesperson Asuman Mugenyi told
Reuters.
Brad Nathanson, a private investigator and friend of Rice,
said he had been shown the toxicology report by police and there
was no evidence of “foul play” in Rice’s death.
“In fact it was as a result of buying bad drugs, cocaine to
be specific … it was a bad concoction,” Nathanson told
reporters.
“I have read the toxicology report … it shows that there
were small traces of cocaine in their blood and urine,” he said,
adding he had travelled to Uganda as a friend of the Rice family
following rumours he had been poisoned, and not for payment.
Rice’s assistant, identified by police as Kathryne Fuller,
was found unconscious at the same time Rice’s body was
discovered on Feb. 18 at the Serena hotel in the capital,
Kampala. She is now conscious but paralysed down the right hand
side of her body.
Ugandan police said on Saturday they had arrested a man who
confessed selling drugs to the pair who had been in the east
African country working on a documentary.
Continued…
