‘Incriminating’ Texts With Drug Dealer Focus Of Probe Into Hayden Panettiere’s Death

The Drug Enforcement Administration is looking closely at a lengthy series of text messages that it believes were sent between the late actress Hayden Panettiere and her alleged drug dealer.

Entertainment news site TMZ reported on Tuesday that the texts in question — which included “a slew of messages about drugs” — are “incriminating” and have become the focal point of the investigation into the “Nashville” star’s recent death.

According to the report, the conversations went back years and continued up until the week that Panettiere was found dead in a South Carolina Airbnb rental — and included numerous messages that made specific references to obtaining black-market pills.

In a separate report also published Tuesday, TMZ revealed that DEA agents searched Panettiere’s West Hollywood home in the days after her death. They arrived at her condo on August 25, just over one week after she died on August 16, armed with a search warrant. Their target, according to the report, was any evidence of black-market drugs or anything that might link those drugs to a specific dealer. The search included any and all drug paraphernalia, and any drugs — whether prescription or recreational.

Neighbors told TMZ that they had seen three “shady” people — two women and one man — coming and going over the years that Panettiere lived there, delivering small bags the neighbors believed contained drugs. The man had made a visit to her home the week prior to her death.

The results of a full toxicology report are still pending, but early reports suggest that Panettiere died after taking an oxycodone pill that was laced with fentanyl. She was 36 years old.

Panettiere’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, and his brother, Zach Hickerson, found the “Heroes” actress unresponsive on the afternoon of August 16 in a Greenville, South Carolina, Airbnb rental she and Brian were sharing. Zach said in a statement that he called 911 while his brother administered naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversal drug sold as Narcan, and that the two performed CPR until first responders arrived. They were unable to revive her.

Brian Hickerson reportedly turned over a bag of medication that had belonged to Panettiere.

The DEA has been involved in the case since the early days of the investigation in the hopes of bringing down her dealer in the same way that the dealers who provided deadly doses to “Friends” actor Matthew Perry and rapper Mac Miller were brought to justice.

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