Prince’s Privacy Closed Doors to Investigators Seeking Answers in His Death

The paramedics who had met the jet on the tarmac in Moline, Illinois, recalled a surreal scene: At first, they believed the near-lifeless body being carried down the steps was that of an old woman, given the glittery gold clothing and shoes.

Up close, it was unmistakably Prince, who was barely breathing. Recognizing the symptoms, a paramedic later told investigators, he administered a shot of Narcan, a medication used to reverse an opioid overdose.

Nothing happened.

But a second shot of Narcan caused Prince to take a large gasp and come to. When asked how he felt, Prince did not respond, but Kirk Johnson, his trusted body man, spoke up: “Prince feels fine.”

Johnson later told investigators that it was that emergency landing, after a concert on April 14, 2016, that made him realize that Prince had a serious problem. In subsequent days, Johnson and other members of Prince’s tight inner circle would help arrange visits with addiction specialists. A week later, just as help was on his Paisley Park doorstep, Prince was dead at 57.

On Thursday, the Minnesota authorities wrapped up their two-year investigation into the musician’s death, opting not to charge anyone criminally because they said they could not track his fatal dose — pills Prince probably thought were Vicodin but which actually contained much-stronger fentanyl — to any individual.

But the hundreds of pages of investigative documents released by the Carver County Sheriff’s Office did pull back the curtain on Prince’s intense reliance on his intimate circle of friends and employees, as well as their desire to protect him, as demonstrated by Johnson’s behavior in Moline. In their limited statements to investigators, those closest to Prince in his final years said that the depths of his opioid addiction had been largely concealed from them until his final weeks when they rushed to save him.

“How did he hide this so well?” Johnson said to investigators, repeatedly mentioning Prince’s obsession with privacy.

Those who had been close to Prince in earlier days told investigators a different story. An ex-wife, a former business manager, a past tour manager and Sheila E., a longtime musical collaborator, each told police that Prince had used prescription painkillers for many years, both discreetly and with a sense of shame. They said Prince had relied on a small network of people to obtain medication while maintaining his privacy.

This seeming contradiction — with some of Prince’s associates saying they were aware of his long struggle with pain medication, but others saying they had no idea until the end — ultimately frustrated investigators.

“There is no doubt that the actions of individuals closely associated with Prince will be questioned, criticized and judged in the days and weeks to come,” the Carver County attorney, Mark Metz, said in his announcement that there would be no charges. Metz noted that “because Prince was an intensely private person, he was certainly assisted and enabled by others to obtain” the pills he came to rely on.

But the investigators could not make a case against anyone for supplying the fatal drugs. “Suspicions and innuendo are categorically insufficient to support any criminal charges,” Metz said.

Despite an often blurry picture of the singer’s relationship to drugs, Prince’s associates appeared to agree that his pain stemmed from what he loved most: performing. After decades of onstage acrobatics, often in heels, Prince was known to suffer from hip pain and was said to have undergone surgery. The musician also complained sometimes of numbness in his arms and hands, possibly from banging relentlessly on the piano.

In an interview with police about a year after Prince’s death, Theo London, his tour manager and chief of staff between 2011 and 2015, recalled the singer once asking for a painkiller and becoming angry when London brought him a Tylenol, explaining that he needed something stronger.

Manuela Testolini, Prince’s wife from 2001 to 2007, told police that Prince often used narcotic pain pills during that period to manage his bodily aches. Sheila E. said that Prince had always wanted to hide how much pain he was in. Years ago, she told police, people working for the singer would obtain prescriptions for him in their own names to protect his privacy.

Investigators found that Johnson had done just that before Prince’s April 14 concert in Atlanta. Dr. Michael Schulenberg told police that he had prescribed Percocet to Prince in Johnson’s name that day, after a last-minute request to treat the singer. It is illegal to write a prescription to someone knowing the medication is intended for someone else, and on Thursday, Schulenberg agreed to pay a $30,000 civil settlement with the federal government, in which he admitted no liability.

Text messages obtained by police show Johnson scheduling appointments for Prince with the doctor, including a day before he died, when he appeared to be going through opiate withdrawal. Schulenberg prescribed drugs in Prince’s name for those symptoms, and he and Prince’s close associates began seeking help.

Johnson’s lawyer, F. Clayton Tyler, said Friday: “He tried to take care of his friend as best as he could. The bottom line is, if they had thought he’d done something wrong, they’d have charged him.”

Addiction specialists were waiting at the Paisley Park studio and residence on the morning of April 21 when Prince was discovered dead in his elevator.

Those present — including Johnson and Meron Bekure, Prince’s personal assistant of a year and a half — indicated that Prince’s addiction to painkillers had largely been a mystery to them. The refrain that would be repeated throughout the investigation began right away: Prince was a very private person, his confidantes told authorities.

Bekure, in a brief interview with police that afternoon, explained she was uncertain of what she could discuss, having signed a confidentiality agreement. She said the only medication she had procured for Prince was for constipation. (Investigators noted that various bathrooms in Paisley Park contained enemas and other constipation medication: “This was of interest only because one of the common side effects of narcotics usage is constipation,” documents said.) On Friday, Ryan Garry, a lawyer for Bekure, said that Bekure “continues to mourn Prince’s passing.”

“It’s been a tough couple of years emotionally, and she’s thankful the matter has come to a close,” he said.

Johnson told investigators that he was only beginning to understand the depths of Prince’s addiction. Again citing Prince’s privacy — the singer had no cellphone and had even disabled the security cameras on his property because he feared being watched, he said — Johnson also cautioned the authorities that “no one would talk about” Prince’s drug use, perhaps out of fear.

Others further removed had fewer reservations about telling investigators what they knew or believed. Crystal Zehetner, a chef for Prince who also worked as his business manager between 2010 and 2015, told Detective Chris Wagner of the Carver County Sheriff’s Office that Prince would frequently complain of hip pain and that she “knew he had a substance abuse problem,” according to a report from Wagner.

Zehetner, who declined to comment Friday, told the detective that “of course” those around him knew about Prince’s addiction and that if anyone who worked with Prince said they did not know, “that those people were lying.”

A couple of associates said they had noticed changes in Prince’s demeanor and behavior. In early April, he had canceled shows, citing the flu, and his personal chef, Ray Roberts, told police Prince was eating less, losing weight and “didn’t seem good.” Judith Hill, one of Prince’s protégés who was on the Moline flight, said to investigators that he had been exhausted on the way to Atlanta, even telling her, “Oh man, I love sleeping more, maybe it means I’ve done all I’m supposed to do on this Earth.” It can be difficult to assess whether someone is addicted to painkillers, according to Dr. John Kelly, director of the Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital. But some telltale signs, he said, were lethargy, irritability, nodding off and perhaps most important, tolerance to medication that leads abusers to seek ever higher doses.

Carver County investigators indicated that they had run into various hurdles while looking into Prince’s death. For instance, a Gmail account belonging to Prince was opened from his MacBook on April 23, 2016, the day of his memorial service, before law enforcement officials obtained a search warrant. “After obtaining a search warrant on Prince’s Google accounts, there was no information prior to 4-19-16,” according to a police report, “suggesting the content had been deleted.”

On Friday, one of Prince’s sisters, Sharon L. Nelson, posted on Twitter about her disappointment with the investigation: “He died, no collecting his computer, securing building, files, records, etc?” she wrote.

Carver County investigators said that until they knew Prince had died from a fentanyl overdose, they had no lawful basis to take his computer and that they did not believe the email deletions to be intentional acts of obfuscation.

“The fact that criminal charges are not brought does not mean that some person or persons associated with Prince did not assist or enable Prince in obtaining the counterfeit Vicodin,” the Carver County attorney’s office, said in its announcement. “After all, Prince somehow came into possession of the pills — and the pills had to come from some source.”