Investigation into Matthew Perry’s death targets several suspects: report

As the criminal investigation into Matthew Perry’s death nears completion, police believe several people should be charged.

June 26, 2024, 2:55 p.m. PDT | Updated June 26, 2024, 2:58 p.m. PDT

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — As the criminal investigation into the death of Matthew Perry nears its conclusion, police believe several people should be charged in connection with the actor’s drug-related death, according to a report in People newspaper.

The magazine’s report quoted an anonymous law enforcement source as saying the final decision on whether or not to charge the individuals, whose names were not mentioned in People magazine, will be made by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

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The news comes after the Los Angeles Police Department announced in May that it was investigating Perry’s death along with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Perry, 54, was found unconscious in the pool of his Pacific Palisades home on Oct. 28 and was pronounced dead at the scene. The medical examiner determined he died from “the acute effects of ketamine.”

The medical examiner noted in the autopsy report that Perry had undergone ketamine infusion treatment for depression and anxiety, but his last known treatment had occurred over a week before his death – meaning the ketamine found in his body came from another source.

In May, TMZ reported that investigators had interviewed “key people in Hollywood” who were known to have a drug past and could potentially help police find the source of ketamine.

Ketamine is a dissociative drug most commonly used for surgical anesthesia. In recent years, doctors have increasingly prescribed it in lower doses for off-label treatment of mental illness. Treatments are available as intravenous infusions, often administered in a healthcare facility, and as oral and nasal delivery methods that can be performed at home.

Ketamine is also commonly used as a recreational drug because it produces a relaxed state. Higher recreational doses can produce a dissociative, hallucinatory state known as the “K-hole.”

The DEA has increased its scrutiny of doctors who prescribe ketamine over the past year, including one prominent doctor who prescribed the drug to patients nationwide for use at home, a practice set up using pandemic-era rules that allow controlled substances to be prescribed via telemedicine.

In that case, the DEA stripped Dr. Scott Smith of his authority to prescribe controlled substances, the Washington Post reported.

Perry spoke openly about his struggle with alcoholism and addiction and documented it in his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”

Perry nearly died at 49 after his colon burst due to opioid overuse. The incident left him in a coma for two weeks and hospitalized for five months, People reported. He told the magazine the experience helped him get clean; he had previously been to rehab 15 times.

The coroner stated that Perry’s cause of death was “the acute effects of ketamine.”

“Contributing factors to Mr. Perry’s death include drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid addiction. The cause of death was accidental,” the medical examiner said in a statement shortly after his death.