Peaches Geldof ‘died of heroin overdose’
Newspaper claims as inquest is opened into the death of 25-year-old
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 01 May, 2014, 2:17pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 01 May, 2014, 3:31pm
Agence France-Presse
Peaches Geldof was found dead at her home in Kent, southern England, on April 7. Photo: AFP
Live Aid founder Bob Geldof’s daughter Peaches died of a heroin overdose, the same cause of death as her mother Paula Yates in 2000, Britain’s Times newspaper reported on Thursday.
The model died suddenly on April 7, aged 25, but the autopsy proved inconclusive.
However, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Fotheringham is due to tell a hearing in Gravesend, Kent, later on Thursday that toxicology tests showed she had died of a heroin overdose, the paper reported.
Peaches, who wrote for British magazines and newspapers and presented celebrity-driven television shows, was found dead at her countryside home where she was looking after 11-month-old son Phaedra.
Husband Thomas Cohen, 23, had spent the previous night apart from his wife and was looking after their eldest son, 23-month-old Astala. He raised the alarm when he could not contact her by phone.
Police searched the property for drug paraphernalia, but found none.
Supermodel Kate Moss was among a host of celebrities who attended last month’s funeral at an English village church filled with memories for the tragedy-hit family.
Geldof’s body was carried into St Mary Magdalene and St Lawrence church in Davington in Kent, southern England, in a white coffin painted with a blue sky and clouds.
The church, which is next to the Geldof family estate, was the venue for the funeral of Peaches’ mother Paula Yates, who died in similar circumstances in 2000.
The TV presenter accidentally overdosed on heroin while looking after four-year-old daughter Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily at their London home.
A hearse carrying the coffin of Peaches Geldof, painted with a picture of her family, arrives for her funeral service on April 21, 2014. Photo: Reuters
Peaches posted online an old photograph of her with her mother the night before her death.
Bob Geldof has said his family is suffering “beyond pain” at the death of his second daughter.
A self-confessed “wild child” in her youth, she had become an advocate of “attachment parenting” after becoming a mother.
In her final column for Mother and Baby magazine, published Tuesday with the Geldof family’s blessing, Peaches wrote that she was “happier than ever”.
She said she used to live a life of “wanton wanderlust... lost in a haze of youth and no responsibilities”, with “nothing stopping me from having constant fun”.
But that life became “boring” and her two children “became her entire existence and saved me” from a life of “pure apathy”.
She said fair-weather friends drifted away, but in a “magic moment” when one of her children brought her a picture he had made, “all my doubts were erased”.
“I had the perfect life - two beautiful babies who loved me more than anything. It was, and is, bliss,” she wrote.
“I’m happier than ever.
“Right now life is good. And being a mum is the best part of it.”
Coroner Roger Hatch is set to adjourn the inquest until July in order to give relatives a chance to attend the full hearing, the Times reported.
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