Coroner on Brad Renfro Cause of Death

Knoxville News Sentinel

An old demon defeated Knoxville-born actor Brad Renfro...

"The results have come back, and we have closed the case based on those results," said Craig Harvey, L.A. County chief coroner investigator.

"The cause of death was established as acute heroin/morphine intoxication," said Harvey. "The coroner has indicated the injury occurred by injection, and the coroner has ruled the death an accident."

Renfro had finished shooting "The Informers" with Winona Ryder and Billy Bob Thornton shortly before he died. He gained national recognition starring alongside Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones in his first film, "The Client," which he made the summer he turned 11.

Renfro's legal problems involving drugs began in 1998 when he was charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana seven weeks before his 16th birthday. He reached an agreement with Knox County prosecutors to submit to random drug screenings in order to avoid a juvenile record.

Renfro was sentenced by a judge in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in January 2001 to two years of probation for attempting to steal a yacht in August 2000. In May 2001, he was arrested in Knox County for underage consumption of alcohol. After he was arrested in Knoxville for public intoxication in January 2002, he spent a short stint in a Florida jail before being ordered to enter a three-month substance-abuse treatment program.

In November 2005, Renfro was arrested in Los Angeles for driving under the influence, but the incident that signaled the depth of his substance-abuse problems was his December 2005 arrest for attempting to buy heroin in L.A.'s skid row district. After a brief stint in jail on his DUI charge in March 2006, he entered a rehab program in lieu of jail for the heroin arrest...

Harvey speculated that Renfro's overdose could have occurred because the actor had not been using drugs in a while.

"Other people had told us that he was off of the injectables; he wasn't using anything injectable," said Harvey. "You have guys that … go to prison and they were IV drug users, and they're in prison for a period of time. Then they get out of prison, and the first thing they do is they'll score some drugs.

"They buy the same quantity or level of drugs that they were buying before they went into prison, and they use the same quantity or level they used and they'll end up overdosing immediately because their bodies detoxed while they were in prison. They don't take that into consideration.

"And I'm just wondering if he (Renfro) might have done essentially the same thing. He hadn't used it in so long, and when ultimately he did use it again he just simply used the same quantity he did before without thinking, not realizing his body no longer had the same tolerance to it as before."

Despite his legal problems and struggles with addiction, Renfro starred in 21 feature films, including "The Informers," and reportedly he had other film prospects on the horizon...