Matthew Perry Death Investigation Sees Major Breakthrough

Addiction recovery advocate and beloved actor Matthew Perry's tragic death in 2023 shook the world. Now, even more is coming out about the "Friends" star's untimely death, and it's heartbreaking. Perry died at his Los Angeles home at the age of 54 after what has now been determined to be acute effects of ketamine, an anesthetic. Now, as of the morning of August 15, 2024, multiple people have been arrested in connection with his death.

According to Perry's autopsy, he was found in his hot tub with large quantities of ketamine in his bloodstream. The ketamine is said to have likely rendered Perry unconscious, at which time he slid underwater and drowned. Perry had been receiving ketamine therapy as a treatment for anxiety and depression. Yet, the amount of ketamine found in his bloodstream was exorbitant: 3.54 micrograms per milliliter, which is almost three times as much as the normal amount, per the New York Post. According to the coroner, it is not possible that the ketamine in Perry's system was from his treatment — not only because of the dosage, but also because the drug's half-life is only about four hours. Perry's last treatment was reportedly over a week before his death. Consequently, it became clear that Perry, who was famously open about his past struggles with drug addiction, obtained the ketamine that ultimately caused his death in a different way. Now, multiple drug dealers and a doctor who allegedly helped Perry obtain the drug are being charged with felonies. 

After decades of struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, Matthew Perry had reportedly been sober for the 19 months leading up to his death. His death came just a month shy of a year following the release of his New York Times bestselling memoir, "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing." In it, he explained how he first began receiving ketamine infusions while he was in a Swiss rehab clinic during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Ketamine was a very popular street drug in the 1980s. There is a synthetic form of it now, and it's used for two reasons: to ease pain and help with depression," Perry wrote. "Has my name written all over it — they might as well have called it 'Matty,'" he joked.

With the help of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Service, the LAPD executed search warrants to get to the bottom of who assisted Perry in obtaining the drug that ultimately led to his death. During this investigation, text messages between Perry and others in which he planned to get ketamine were uncovered. While the names of the associated arrestees remain unknown, the head of the DEA and U.S. attorney for Los Angeles will reportedly hold a press conference about the matter later on Thursday afternoon.