Crime Weekly - Hayden Panettiere Dies at 36 After Exposing Disturbing Hollywood Experiences

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Consider supporting and donating to The Kaylee Goncalves Foundation/Murder Has a Name here: https://www.murderhasaname.com/ Actress Hayden Panettiere, known for her roles in Heroes, Nashville and the Scream franchise, died on August 16, 2026, at age 36 after being found unresponsive in a Greenville, South Carolina, apartment. Authorities found no signs of foul play, but her official cause of death remains under investigation. Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasse. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And as you can tell from the title, we're going to be talking about Hayden Penitier, who spent almost her entire life in Hollywood, becoming one of the biggest young stars of the 2000s. But behind the scenes, Hayden was fighting addiction, depression, abusive relationships, and the consequences of growing up inside an industry that had a very real dark side. And many of us know about this now. We've talked about it on numerous occasions. And recently, Hayden had begun talking about all of it. She was finally telling her own story about what had happened to her as a child star, the adults around her, the drugs she says were introduced to her while she was still a teenager, and the experiences that followed her well into adulthood. Now, at just 36 years old, Hayden Penitier is dead. And while investigators are still determining exactly what happened to her in her final hours of life, her death has brought renewed attention not only to the struggles she spent years trying to overcome. come, but also the darker side of Hollywood and what she had only recently felt comfortable

enough to start talking about. So she had recently started coming out and talking about different things that were going to come up, including a memoir that she was going to discuss some of this. And now she's dead. So it has a lot of people asking questions, understandably so. This is a very important thing to talk about because there's a lot about this. And it's very early. It is. It is. But there's a lot about this that we should be questioning. And as we kind of go through the timeline and everything, you'll understand why and then we'll discuss. But this is sort of an interest of mine, how these industries, Hollywood and politics and with everything coming out with P. Diddy and Jeffrey Epstein. It's not just a conspiracy theory anymore.

It's a real thing. Yeah. It never was a conspiracy theory, but everyone wanted to stick their heads in the sand. And now you have things coming out. And sometimes you see people who come out and talk about this and then suddenly they're no longer with us. They disappear. And you have to wonder what happened here. We're going to talk about that. First off, I mean, I think about Hayden, I was saying to you earlier, like heroes, one of the best shows in its early seasons.

And Hayden, I think, was everybody's, every teen boy's crush. When this came out yesterday, just a realization that, like, doesn't matter who they are, how quote unquote, successful they look from the outside. Everyone deals with their own struggles. And I am really interested to hear about the death investigation because there is a possibility that it's not related. but I do think the timing is suspicious. And as an investigator, I'm not going into this investigation thinking, oh, yeah, she was talking about back pain. Maybe this is going to be a case of self-harm. We don't know yet.

But even if it is, I personally would be taking a deeper look at it, even if on the surface it looks to be something, because that may be exactly what someone wanted me to think going in there. If you follow what I'm putting down. So you have to have an extra level of scrutiny when you're looking at this case because of the outside circumstances. that you're going to discuss. Here's also how I always go into these cases when it involves somebody in this industry. Chester Bennington's another one. Yes. Yes.

Lincoln Park. They're looking into certain things. They're talking about certain things. They had these struggles with drugs, alcohol, et cetera. Even if it's not this whole conspiracy theory, like, oh, they're being silenced. You have to look at the lives they lived. Yes. What they were exposed to, what they experienced and what kind of dynamic they were living in that even introduced them to

the lifestyle. Let's say it was an overdose. Let's say it was something she did to herself. There's a reason that she was in that position. And I think that Hollywood and the industry and what she was exposed to as a young girl have a lot to do with where she ended up. Couldn't agree more. Context matters. Even if there's not some, oh, yeah, she was silenced and there's an Illuminati. You still have to start looking at this industry under a microscope and stop giving it all of these accolades and applauding it. And you have to start asking, what is this industry doing to people? Because this is not the first time and it won't be the last. Stephanie, I mean, it's so blatantly obvious at this point. Amanda Bines, Justin Bieber, Aaron Carter. Like, I mean, we can think about all

these kids who have been affected. Even Miley Cyrus has talked about it a little bit, like the way these kids are treated. Lindsay Lohan, yeah. It's not even a secret anymore. You can see, we have the data now, right? Where we grew up around these people as children and we see how they are in adulthood in there, to put it bluntly, going through a lot. They're really not doing well. Some people like Justin, they've been able to overcome some stuff, although you can tell there's still things that they struggle with. Yeah, this is a prevalent thing in Hollywood. And at minimum, and I'm so glad you said it, we should be looking at how we got here to try to prevent it from happening in the future. And I do think there have been some changes, but unfortunately,

I think a lot of this is still going on. Brittany Murphy, Britney Spears, we could keep going. All day long. So let's talk really quickly. When I got this news last night, I was devastated because I, of course, grew up watching Hayden. Remember the Titans? I mean, this is how I think of her now, this little precocious girl and remember the Titans and she was so good on screen right away. You know, you could tell that she had it. You know, she had that spark.

The It factor, yeah, for sure. And you saw it fade as she kind of went into adulthood and all these horrible things that happened to her. But Hayden died on August 16th, 2026 at the age of 36. We're filming this on August 17th. The news hit yesterday. This is just five days. before her 37th birthday that she was found dead, reportedly unresponsive at a residence in

Greenville, South Carolina. We are going to talk about that because this wasn't just any residence. She doesn't live in South Carolina. What is she doing there? Now, officials have said they found no evidence of foul play or suspicious circumstances. How many times have I heard that? The official cause of death has not yet been determined, and the autopsy is pending. Let's talk about Hayden. She's born August 1989 in Palisades, New York. She started off really young. on the screen. And when I say really young, I think she was in commercials when she was just a baby. So this is a very early introduction to being on screen. She was in One Life to Live in the 90s, Guiding Light. Like I said, she was Little Cheryl and Remember the Titans. She was an ice princess, which brings to

mind another ice princess, Michelle Trackenberg, who also recently passed away. And then when the biggest show, I would say, Heroes, when that premiered, she was only 17. And then she kind of took a break from acting after Heroes, she popped back up and scream four. And then the next biggest show that she was in was Nashville. Now, you probably didn't watch Nashville. I don't know if you did or not. I loved it. I've heard about it and I've seen clips of it for sure. I know she was in it. Yeah. Those first few seasons, man, this was great TV. She was amazing in it. She stole the show. Yeah. Wasn't she like the pop star in it or like the country star in it? The pop star. Yep. She was the country star. And you could see these disturbing parallels between her life and the role she was playing. which was Juliette Barnes. She probably had a lot of anecdotal experience to pull from to play that character. Well, she later said in interviews

some of the storylines that she was being given scripts for, she said it almost became uncomfortable because it was so similar to what was happening in her actual life, which is substance abuse, unstable relationships, postpartum depression, all of these things were in the scripts and she was like, this is kind of getting a little heavy because...

Too close to home? Yeah, and you wonder why she played this role so well because she was impeccable and that could be why. So she described becoming involved with pills, pills and things like that and drugs very early on. She said somebody connected to her in her professional career began giving her what she described as happy pills before she would walk the red carpet. And this was when she was just 15 years old. This is her first introduction, an adult person in the industry handing her a pill and saying, go for it. Happy pills, yeah.

And we've seen this before. Was it Judy Garland? also was being given diet pills when she was, you know, very young in the industry. So Hayden Pantier began to become addicted to opioids and alcohol. She said for a while while she was actively working, she was able to kind of maintain herself and keep it under control because she refused to appear intoxicated when she was working. She wanted to be professional. And so her ability to keep working constantly kind of kept that in check for a while. But once she wasn't working as steadily and she was having personal life issues and things like.

Like that, that structure went away. She said she became caught in a cycle of self-destruction. And she said every time she thought she'd hit rock bottom, something worse would happen. And then as she got older, she said the drugs and the alcohol became something she felt she could not live without. Yeah. And that's how it happens. In the initial stages, it's something where you're just using to take the edge off. And then all of a sudden you find yourself in a place.

And it happens overnight where now you're unable to function without it. It's the only way to get to the point where you feel comfortable because now you're, Not only do you have a dependency, but also it's a crutch. Psychologically, you think that this is the only way you can get through it. You forget how to get through things without it. This is the easy pill. Like she said, the happy pill. You just take it and everything gets better.

I don't have to do any work. I don't have to process anything. I can just take it. And I'm good to go. We hear about this all the time, not just in Hollywood, but just in everyday life where people who are feeling down, going through some struggles, they take a pill here and and then all of a sudden it becomes a constant. And then they find themselves in a tough spot where now they can't stop taking it.

That's addiction in a nutshell. We went through the opioid epidemic where these things were incredibly easy to get, easy to be prescribed. We saw families and lives being ruined. And we saw that they have been, you know, regulations put in place, make those things less easy. But all of those people who had already become dependent and addicted, they were still dependent and addicted. Personal story, when I was involved in my shooting in 2000, would be 2007, I was prescribed Xanax after that. And it was just to, you know, kind of get me, you know, going through a tough time. I started taking them. I'd never taken them before in my life and I was only supposed to take them as needed and

they helped. They helped a lot. And then I found myself going from once as needed to once or twice a day. And luckily for me, it was very early in it that I realized, oh man, this is too easy and this is feeling too good. And now I'm finding myself wanting to take a third one before I go to sleep because also it helps me go to sleep. And then I take one when I wake up and I saw that circle starting to develop and I also realized that I couldn't go back to work. while still taking that medication. There are ways to take it, but there's different medications you can take, not Xanax being one of them. So I knew I had to come off it anyways. And luckily, I was able to kind of go cold turkey, but that's not the case for everyone. A lot of the times it's too deep in before you realize there's a problem. Especially with opioids. Yeah, man, it's scary. I consider myself a strong-minded person, but I was right there. I was literally right there. And I was like,

man, okay, I see it. This is where it goes bad. And luckily, I was able to go the other way. But I saw firsthand how dangerous it can be because it's easy just when you're sitting there alone to just pop a pill, take a cup of water and you're good. Well, Hayden wouldn't always be alone, right? So that's what we're going to talk about. We're going to take a quick break, but Hayden gets into a relationship. She has a daughter. And this is another tragic thing that we need to talk about. Hayden's daughter, Kaya, is 11 years old now. So this is very sad. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Hayden Pantier becomes engaged to a Ukrainian heavyweight boxing champion. They have a daughter together. Yeah, Vladimir Klitsko, unbelievable boxer, by the way, one of the best of all time.

Their daughter, Kea, was born in December of 2014. And then on top of having substance abuse and alcohol issues now, Hayden develops severe postpartum depression. And she talked about it. She's openly talked about it, especially in the recent years. And she said, listen, I never had thoughts about hurting my daughter. But what I felt was a profound and deep emotional disconnection. I reached a point where I didn't even want to spend time with my child, even though intellectual actually I knew that I loved her. And this was very hard. The guilt that came along with that. All of it's hard. We've talked about this before. Now, she did seek treatment for postpartum depression in 2015. But behind the scenes, her substance abuse was worsening. And then she later explained that the alcoholism and the addiction and the postpartum depression all became intertwined. And so she and Vladimir separated in 2018 while she was still struggling very badly with alcohol and opioids. And then something happened, which is devastating to any parent. Kaya was in Ukraine with her father.

And then Vladimir told Hayden he wanted full custody. She signed the paperwork and granted him full custody. But she said publicly in 2022 that it wasn't fully her decision. And not only was it one of the most painful experiences in her life, she didn't fully understand what it meant. Like she knew at that point in her life, I'm not able to give my daughter the consistency that she needs. Which respect to her. But she didn't fully understand the arrangement meant you're not going to see. your daughter. Like on the day to day, you're not going to be there to raise your daughter. And

she was able to continue a relationship with her daughter through visits and FaceTime calls. And she's always constantly spoken positively about her daughter's father, Vladimir, saying he's a great father. You know, there's never been any, like, bad feelings between them. I almost forgot that they were engaged at one point. In the boxing community, he's very well respected. I'll say the upstanding guy. When the whole thing happened with the Ukraine to start with Russia, he signed up to go over there and fight. This is a multi-millionaire. And he was a like, you know what, I'm going to go fight for my country. I mean, he's very stand-up dude. It's just sad. Once again, two people who probably cared a lot about each other, had a child

together, and it wasn't like, oh, we hate each other, we're mad at each other. This isn't working. It was like, Hayden is going through something that I cannot be around and I care about her, and I'm not going to say a bad word about her, but this is what's best now. That's what's supposed to happen. But I do wish there was better understanding at the time of what this meant, because like you just said, Hayden was signing this because she knew it was for the betterment of Kyah, but there should have been some more disclosure so that she knew exactly what she was signing. And she's probably signing it in the throes of, you know, a very dark place. In the middle of this whole thing. Yeah, exactly. And then after she gets out of this relationship with

Vladimir, she starts a relationship with somebody else, Brian Hickerson, who ended up becoming very abusive in their relationship. Apparently, they both struggled with substance abuse together, which is never a good thing. And it got so bad that she started using more because there was so many things going on in her life. And she called it, you know, doing these things, alcohol substances, is putting her in the f*** zone. She said, in that zone, quote, I forgot everything. Brian's abuse, Kaya's absence and a career I chosen to hide from. Leaving acting hadn't been a conscious decision. It simply happened, end quote. So we know that Brian Hickerson was arrested following allegations of domestic violence involving Hayden. Criminal charges did come from that incident and other incidents occurring between 2019 and 2020.

So he's admitted it. He's admitted to being abusive in the relationship. This isn't random allegations. So Hayden starts going to treatment, and actually while she's in treatment, she gets better. She said it was very hard at first. Physical withdrawals were terrible, but after about three months, she started feeling joy again, not joy from taking a pill or being drunk, but pure joy, which she realizes better than any joy you can get from that. And it's during this time that she's in treatment, she's also encouraged to file charges against Brian and pursue criminal charges against him. Now, as far as we know, and I've looked through this, there's no confirmed relapse or confirmation of Hayden going back to drugs and alcohol. after she leaves rehab in 2021.

She went to rehab for eight months. She had intensive trauma therapy after. She does not seem to appear to have gone back to drugs, which is, once again, something that we're going to come back to when we talk about her death. And we also have the fact that in February of 2023, another thing happened that was very hard for her. Hayden's younger brother Jansen died at 28 years old. Now, his death also was not ruled in overdose.

The family said he had an enlarged heart combined with complications involving his aortic valve. But there is credible reporting that Jansen as well struggled with drugs, specifically prescription opioids before his death. And in her memoir that came out in May of this year, Hayden does talk about her brother struggling with drugs at the stage before his death. So we have kind of a similar thing here where with Hayden, she dies. And it's easy to be like, well, you know, she had a long battle with drugs. So that makes sense because she's 36, right? So you're going to look at her. She's 36. What are the options that could be happening here, right? She doesn't have a long-terminal illness. She's young. She's healthy. It would have had to have been. She did this to herself and or drugs.

Yeah, it could be accidental. Could be self-harm, but it also could be maybe she relapsed. Maybe she had an accident while she was at home alone. We don't know. Well, she wasn't home. So we're going to talk about that. But first, I want to talk about what came out when Hayden published her memoir on May 19, 2026. Because the memoir, which was called, This Is Me, a Reckoning.

It revealed several things that shocked people and gave a behind the scenes look into what Hayden's Hollywood life was like and how damaging it was. So first of all, we have this allegation that Hayden said when she's 18, a woman she knew who she trusted very much, another actress who was Hayden's close friend. And on a podcast, I think it was Jay Shetty's podcast. She said, this woman was somebody I had come to see as a protector who had my back, like I trusted her completely. Yeah. So this made its rounds on social media. This got some attention. So they go to the south of France and they go on what Hayden described as a super yacht

where there's celebrities, champagne's flowing, parties, it's all nonstop fun. And Hayden said she spent days on this yacht, partying it up, dancing, swimming in the Mediterranean, and then the situation turned dark because towards the end of her trip, her friend that she thought she trusted approached her during dinner and said, hey, I want you to come downstairs and meet someone. So Hayden goes downstairs with her. They walk down this narrow hallway into a private cabin. And she discovered, Hayden discovered, which she referred to as a famous 30-something British singer-songwriter, naked under the sheets.

And Hayden was like, what the hell? Is this guy naked? What's going on here? And the friend, the close friend, who she thought was her friend, whispered to her, I want you to get into bed with him and then left them alone in the room. This is an older woman, by the way. Hayden's 18. Hayden said, I started to mentally disconnect from that situation. I had been managed for years by adults in the entertainment industry and I was conditioned to trust people.

and suppress my instincts. And then she talks about this woman who once again, she trusted. And she said, quote, I felt like I'd been kicked in the face. She'd confided in me, pampered me and treated me like her best friend, then turned around and treated me like a call girl.

End quote. Okay, so this is what I think we all understand in this industry and how we understand the true crime community. It sounds like an older woman, like a Galane Maxwell type, grooming a younger woman in the industry. Hey, I'm going to bring you to this yacht,

celebrities, parties, drink, drink, drugs, drugs, and then pimping her out to a man in the industry and thinking that that's going to just be something that's acceptable and okay. From what it sounds like, it's pretty transparent what happened here. This was the plan all along, like you just said. This British singer-songwriter was on this yacht. He knew what he was paying for. He said, I want her.

Yep, I want her. Invite her. Let's get her drunk and get her high all trip. And then at the end, that's when I get what I paid for. That's when you bring her into a room with me while I'm naked in the bed. Yeah. I only ask this question because it could be relevant moving forward, but do we know if Hayden had sex with this individual? She says she didn't.

She says she didn't. Okay. Well, that's good. That's good, obviously, that she was able to get out of it. But I ask only because you think about potential charges and things like that down the road. I don't know. She wouldn't name them. Yeah.

And if nobody's connected to the dots yet, then more than likely. And I'm sure people have tried. Yeah, people have. I'm not going to say those names here. You can look them up online. Oh, so you think you know who it is? Not me. But they think they know who it is.

Yes. Yes. Okay. Interesting. I'll have to look it up later. And I mean, hey, listen, there's some serious internet researchers out there and they put dots together. But personally, I would imagine this would be an easy one to figure out because you could

go back and see your social media or social media of others during that time. And then who knows who and who was in the South of France at that time. Yeah. Yeah. Who would be out there. British singer-songwriter. I mean, it's. In his 30s.

In his 30s. It's going to narrow the pool down pretty significantly. I agree. I agree. So there's that, first of all. Once again, this is something where you're like, oh, how could this happen? This happens in Hollywood all the time. And by the way, it's not always famous women.

It could just be people who are fans. And that's how they get, that's how they get groomed as well. And they get stuck. I see all the social media now, and I won't say names, but I see a lot of young women doing photo shoots on these mega yachts and overseas. And I'm like, okay, what's the context here? Yeah, I completely agree with you. And that's what's happening. And it happens all the time.

If you look at Jeffrey Epstein's not work, this is exactly what he did. He had people recruiting women, not just Gilein Maxwell, other women, other men, recruiting women, introducing them to powerful, rich people and doing this, this happens. It's still happening. And it's even more overt than that sometimes. How many times do we hear stories from celebrities and just like really attractive models where people from overseas have reached out and said, hey, I'll pay you $3 million to fly out here for the weekend? Like, it's nothing.

It's just like they have unlimited funds. and they're writing their messages either through another person, you know, by proxy, or they're like, hey, we want you to come out here. We're going to take a shopping and give you $3 million. You're going to spend the weekend with this person. And listen, I think that's fine. If you as the person are an adult consenting and you know what's going to happen. But for Hayden to be brought in this yacht, like, it's going to be fun and you're with your girlfriend who you trust.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, that's, that's criminal. That's criminal. It's a betrayal. It's trafficking. Okay, especially because we went to a different country to do it. All right? It's disgusting.

Now we also have Hayden claiming she's 19, she's at a party, and then a well-respected Oscar-winning actor-slash-director exposed himself to her. She said, she's at this party, and he said, look down. I have gum on my pants. And she looked down and saw his zipper was unzipped and his testicles were hanging out. This is the same party? A different party. This is when she's 19. I'm about to say, then it would be really easy to narrow down when this occurred and who was there. Yep. And then at a party in 2008 during the height of heroes, right? She said a powerful NBC executive kissed her on the lips at a party. And at first she was like, oh, it's harmless.

She's saying it's harmless because this stuff happens to her all the time. Okay? She's a prop. It's not harmless. Her boyfriend at the time, who was Milo Ventimilia, who we love. We love Milo. Yep. He was in heroes as well.

Awesome. Yep. And they were in a relationship. And he was like, what are you talking about? It's not harmless. This is reprehensible. It's completely inappropriate. And they fought over it because she was like, hey, like, I'm making my career happen.

Like, I can't make waves. And he was like really mad about it. And it ended up ending their relationship. So we have all of this stuff now talking about what happened to Hayden. This was just a few months ago in May. This memoir comes out. Hayden's talking about how bad it is as a child star, the pressure, the dangerous situations. Hollywood basically introducing her to drugs and inappropriate situations at a very young age,

all these experiences with these powerful men in Hollywood. And by all accounts, from what we can tell, Hayden has been clean and sober for years. and suddenly she's dead at 36. And that's where we kind of need to discuss how this happened, who she was with, allegedly. And we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. And, yeah, I know we're going to talk about the specifics of her death or at least what we know so far.

But I'm really happy that you mentioned that even if this turns out to be what it appears to be, like there's nothing nefarious going on as far as the actual death. I think it's very important to keep driving home the fact of what you're saying right here. Whereas how did we get here? And even if this isn't a specific example of someone taking her out because of what she could disclose, there are still a lot of contributing factors and a lot of people who contributed to this whole thing and where we are today. This was a young girl who was taking advantage of throughout most of her teenage years. Even though you can try to make things right, there's still scar tissue from that. And so regardless of it's direct or indirect, where we are today, if this doesn't turn out to be some type of underlying medical condition that she would,

was unaware of. Those circumstances, those stories that you've talked about a little bit today are absolutely part of the reason that Hayden is no longer with us. A big reason. And I would like to say, it doesn't have to be this like nefarious or like underhanded like, although it could be. Although it could be. But here it doesn't have to be as simple as like, let's send an assassin and to kill her. Yeah. It could be as simple as these people see her memoir published. They're like, ah, she's been silent for decades. And all of a sudden she's feeling comfortable in this new social landscape where people are being called out to start calling us out, not by name, but how long till she does call us out by name? And so maybe then they contact someone in her circle and they're like,

hey, Hayden has been so vocal about her struggles with addiction and alcoholism because she wants to help other people who have gone through the same thing. So maybe, why don't you cozy up to her again? Get her back on that stuff and let the rest take care of itself. Especially if she's talking or implicating people, you know, have a lot of money, a lot of influence. These are the only stories we know about, you know, what about the other ones where that that person could be sitting there going, it's only a matter of time before she mentions me. That's what they are thinking. They're going to think that because how many people, I mean, look at the Epstein files, once again, how many people are falling like dominoes because they never thought their names would appear in public. And so when

all the Jeffrey Epstein, he goes to prison and they're like, I never even knew that man. I never talked to him. And then the file start leaking out. And it turns out, oh, actually, you talk to him seven thousand times in three years. What are you talking about? You never. And then they're like, oh yeah, but it wasn't what you think. And then more files come out. And then they got a back panel again. So I'm pissed. And here's the thing.

We know that Hayden flew from L.A. to South Carolina on Saturday, August 15th. That's the day before she died. And who was she with? Who was she photographed with in the airport? Her ex abusive boyfriend, Brian Hickerson. Yeah, who you mentioned earlier had his own substance abuse issues. What had his own substance abuse issues?

We can see that the two appeared to be staying at the Jutson Mill Lofs in Greenville at 701 Easley Bridge Road. Now, this specific unit where she died was reportedly being used as an Airbnb rental rather than like a permanent residence. But I will say, Brian's family seems to be affiliated with this building in some way and they are from South Carolina. Okay. So on August 16th, sometime before 150 p.m., Hayden Panetteer became unresponsive. We don't know for how long. We don't know when. At around 150 p.m., an acquaintance or friend who has not been identified, called 911 and reported an unresponsive female. Who is this acquaintance or friend?

Is it Brian? Is it someone else? We don't know. Assumptions can be made. Assumptions can be made. That's who she traveled there with. First responders attempted to resuscitate Hayden using advanced cardiac life support. So this goes beyond CPR.

They used medicines, breathing tubes, heart rhythm tracking. They did a lot. And then she was pronounced at 2.32 p.m. Now, according to dispatch audio from that day, obtained by People magazine. Officials were heard on dispatch discussing an overdose and a cardiac arrest around the time of Hayden's death. So could be that they were talking about somebody else. Could be that they were talking about her. Could be able to talk about this. We don't want to make any assumptions here, but critical thinking comes in here where we think about Hayden. You just

talked about her history. You have a call come in around that same time. If you made me take an educated guess, it's probably related. But again, we'll have to wait. But that would be my assumption based on those details. Exactly. So now there's a resident at Judson Mill, that building. And the resident told the press that police remained around the complex for several hours. And two men were sitting outside the apartment with the police. The men appeared to be in shock. They had their heads down. So there's two men involved in this. Was one Brian Hickerson. One could be Brian. What could be a friend that showed up after the fact? An acquaintance maybe who called the police. Right. Or it could be Brian who's the acquaintance and then this friend showed up after the fact or was staying there as well. Or Brian called somebody and was like, hey, can you call the police? To come help.

Yeah, yeah, get over here. This is once again, using context clues because she flew there with him. Probably with him, probably staying there with him. Yeah. Once again, who made the 911 call? We don't know. Their identity hasn't been released. Who found Hayden?

We don't know. Presumably the person who made the 911 call, you would presume. You would assume that. But we don't have confirmation of that. Was Brian Hickerson there in the unit or the building when Hayden was found? or unconscious. We don't know. But given the report they traveled together the previous day, it's likely to assume he was, right? Now, when was Hayden last known to be conscious? We currently don't have information about this, but I'm sure we will. Was she texting somebody? Was she

talking to somebody? Who was she with? Was she completely alone in that building? What's going on? She could have been unresponsive for minutes, for hours. We don't know. Now, we also know that Brian has publicly admitted to spiraling into a dark place with drugs and alcohol during his tumultuous relationship with Hayden, has he been fully recovered? Is he still involved in drugs and alcohol? Why would Hayden become completely rehabilitated, not dabbling in drugs and alcohol anymore, feel comfortable enough with her sobriety to go publicly and talk about that in the hopes of helping other people? What would cause her to relapse now? Losing her daughter, this happened several years ago. Her brother dying, this happened several years ago. She just

came out with her memoir a few months ago. She's been getting a lot of positive praise and attention from her coming out and being honest. There's been a lot of people being like, hey, let's figure out who these people are that she's talking about in her memoir, who abused her so terribly during her childhood time in Hollywood and her young adult time in Hollywood. And all of a sudden, Hayden's what, using drugs again and overdosing while she happens to be with an ex-boyfriend. Potentially, allegedly with an ex-boyfriend. Both of them have said was an abusive relationship. There was charges filed. He's admitted to it. He said he's sorry. He feels bad. Blah, blah, blah. Why now? Why him? Why there? What's going on? And those are the questions that I have because this doesn't seem very straightforward. What triggered you when it seems like you're on an upswing to revert back to drug use when you have very vocally made it known that this was the darkest time of your life, how terrible a hold it had on you, how it caused you to pretty much lose your daughter, the thing that mattered the most to you in this world. What's going on? What's going on?

There's pros and cons to law enforcement coming out and saying right away that doesn't appear to be file play. On one hand, they're trying to qual any speculation surrounding something more nefarious than what it actually is. So they're trying to give you information without giving you too much. But on the other hand, I have an issue with it because it just appears that there wasn't a thorough investigation conducted when you're able to say so early on, no foul play, no signs of any type of malicious activity. You already figured that out in 24 hours, 48 hours. hours, even if you did, even if there's something there that definitively rolls out the potential, which I don't know how there would be. But if there was, you still shouldn't say it right away because it just the optics of it makes it seem like you just walked in and said, yep, this is what it is. And that was the end of it. All good here, folks. It just doesn't look good. Now, as far as Brian or anybody else that's there because we don't know who is with her, if anyone at all at the time, hypothetically, though, if there were someone with her and this said person provided her with drugs. There are laws against that if someone dies from it. So I don't know how you sit here and say that there wasn't any foul play or any type of criminal activity

because if it's learned, hypothetically, Hayden was at this Airbnb and for whatever reason, whether it was because of the person that was there with her or because they were just, you know, she relapsed. And this person obtained or procured drugs from South Carolina for recreational purposes for the two of them, that person can be charged. And you're saying that you don't even have the autopsy, don't it, which means you don't have toxicology, which means you wouldn't know what substances were in her system. So how can you say for sure? If there was someone with her, you would want to get their drug test done as well.

You'd want to get a search warrant and have them tested for the same drugs because if it's learned that they were both on the same drugs at the time of the event, that would imply that they were both using the same drugs shortly before her death. And then what you would want to do, reverse engineer it. Cell phone records, cameras. Find out if you can figure out where this person obtain the drugs from. And there's no way they've done all of that yet. No way. There's no way. And that's why I have a problem with it because if there is that potential, that needs to be explored. That takes time. And then if it happens, you know, you charge that

person. Not only should they be held accountable, but it's a deterrent for other people in the future. So that's where my head's out on it. It could be something more nefarious. It could be something much deeper because of what the information she had. But I don't know how you say this early. It's clearly this. Like there may have been. been something here. Again, we're going down different rabbit holes here. Maybe there's a note. Maybe there's something that says, this is what I did. That's fine. Things aren't always what they appear to be. Exactly. You still got to investigate that. So even if that's clearly there, it's your job to be skeptical about what you're seeing and ask the question, is this what I was supposed to find as the

investigator? So that's where I stand on it. Overall, it's a tragic situation. And I want to know if somebody did provide her the drugs. Let's say, hypothetically, This is just a legend. Brian and Hayden are doing drugs together. Hypothetically. On this weekend, right? Hypothetically. Has he had contact with somebody in the past weeks or months that maybe Hayden had previous

contact with? And maybe that person was like, hey, you know, all you have to do, you have to kill her, all you have to do is get her hooked back on drugs. At the worst, then she just becomes somebody who's no longer reliable and nobody's going to believe what she's saying anyways because she's just a drug addict again. At the best case scenario for us. She disappears. And maybe she overdoses, you know, and then we don't have to worry about this at all anymore.

And we can breathe easy again. Yeah, that digital footprint would be huge for multiple reasons, not only for the scenario you just laid out, but also for the potential that there's drug dealers in someone's phone, that you can go back and say, yeah, they called this person days before her death. Come to find out, this person has a long history of drug distribution. There's also a fentanyl element to this where there's crimes for that, specifically in South Carolina. So there's a lot more here that needs to be unpacked. So it's Monday when we're recording this. But by the time this comes out, I can only imagine that there's going to be more information. So, guys, if this is a little outdated, that is the reason why.

And wasn't it just Matthew Perry where, like, his doctor was charged and his assistant was charged? Yeah, much more came out. So you have to follow. I don't care what it leads to. The dots have to be connected at this point because this doesn't make sense. And if somebody was actively encouraging her to use again, knowing her history, which we all knew because she's been public about it, that needs to be known and addressed. And we have to kind of follow the octopus down to see where the head of it is.

Couldn't agree more. If it's a case of accidental overdose, what she'd take, what was in her system, how did she get it? Who was she with? Who was she with? Did she have access to these things? Did a third party get it for her? And then reverse engineer, just like Matthew Perry. That's a great example. We can't bring her back, but we can make sure that the people who are responsible for this are held accountable. So we're going to be. keeping up to date with this one. If things unfold, we may have another crime weekly news on it. But we do want to end on a positive note because there is, you know, with tragedy, sometimes there's a silver lining. And I had the privilege recently of sitting down with Christy Gonzalez,

Kaylee Gonzalez's mother who, and anybody who doesn't know, Kaylee is one of the victims from the Idaho four. We talked about Brian Coburger a couple weeks ago. That video went out there and Christy happened to see it. She didn't know who we were. She had no clue who we were, but saw the video really liked it and she recently started a foundation in Kaylee's name called Murder Has a Name. And this is to raise money for cases specifically in need of funding for DNA. Obviously, you guys know that's right up Stephanie and I's alley, especially with Criminal Coffee. So I sat down with her and her team and we're going to work on future things together, hopefully. But in the meantime, just to give you an update, Criminal Coffee has donated $1,000 to the Murder Has a Name Foundation. That's on behalf of you

guys, right? You're the ones that buy the coffee. And we are working on getting some new cases funded as well. But in the meantime, that foundation is new in need of money for things that you and I care about and for everyone out there that you care about. Sometimes we get people who reach out to us and are like, hey, I don't like coffee, but I want to donate to your cause, to your purpose, your mission statement. And we always have different foundations that you can check out. And we've donated to numerous foundations. We're going to have the Murder Has a Name Foundation links in the description box below, both on Apple, Spotify and YouTube, so you can go donate directly. But also, if you go over to Criminal Coffeeco.com, you'll see a running banner or the

Fight Crime tab where you can see all the donations that we've made on your behalf to different foundations. So if you're looking for someone to donate to that we vetted and that we support, that's a good option for you. So thank you again to all of you for allowing us to be able to do this. And thank you to Christy. And I said this to her on the phone as a parent to go through what she went through and to be able to take this tragedy,

not only ensure that Haley's name isn't forgotten, but to help others who may be in need of help like her, because she said it, I'm one of the lucky ones and where I remember there was a part where I didn't know the who. She still doesn't know the why, but she knows the who at least, and a lot of families don't even have that.

And so she feels fortunate in that aspect, but she wants to help others. And I'm like, this is just incredible. And we're totally into help. And we do have our birthday shout-outs for Patreon for the month of August. Yes, we do. I like this positive no ending. This is good.

Yes, we needed that because I'm pissed. I'm pissed. So we do have our birthday Patreon shoutouts for the month of August. We only have three. So we have Amy Litt, August 3rd. And we have Dawn Ford August 9th. And then we have Lisa Squario, August 23rd. So we have two Leos and Virgo. Amy and Dawn are Leos. So we talked a little bit about Leo's last month because July is still Leo territory. but August Leo's are confident, warm, passionate, charismatic, fiercely loyal.

They have big personalities. They enjoy expressing themselves. Creativity, humor. I've seen it with a lot of Leo's. They're funny people. Leadership. They simply like to be the person that brings energy into a room. And at their best, Leo's are generous, protective, courageous, affectionate,

incredibly supportive of the people they love. They want their people to succeed. They'll often go to bat for them without hesitation. But on the flip side, because we all have a flip side, that strong sense of pride can sometimes make them stubborn. Leo's are stubborn, a little bit overly dramatic, sensitive to criticism, who isn't? They may have trouble admitting when they're wrong. If they feel ignored, unappreciated or disrespected, they can become a little defensive and withdraw their warmth. They can be a little avoidant.

Essentially, Leo energy can be very big heart, big presence, big feelings, but occasionally exhausting when their egos get bruised. Okay, now Virgo's, Lisa, August 23rd is Virgo. My son, Aden, is a Virgo too, so I'm very familiar with this, often described as thoughtful, intelligent, practical, observant, very dependable. They tend to notice the little things other people miss. They're very considerate. They pay attention to you. They can show this that they're paying attention to you by being helpful, reliable, trying to make life easier for the people they care about, which is great. So at their best, Virgoes are very hardworking. Like I said, loyal, considerate, grounded, organized, really, really good problem solvers. Usually the person you can count on. to get something done. And on the downside, because remember we all have that, their analytical nature can turn into overthinking, which I have seen, perfectionism, criticism on themselves, on others, or being overly hard on themselves and others. So they may struggle to relax. They can become anxious when things feel chaotic. They get overstimulated. And sometimes they can

come across as picky or emotionally reserved because they tend to process feelings through logic first. Essentially, Virgo energy is very quietly capable, deeply observant, always trying to improve things, which can make them incredibly supportive and trustworthy, but also prone to stressing over things that other people are like, what are you stressing over this for? Let it go, but they can't. So, happy birthday to our- Happy birthday. Our Leo's, our Virgos, our August birthdays, yes. Yes. And if you want to be added to the birthday list, you can join our Patreon membership. It's right in the description box below. I say it all the time. We got bonus episodes, monthly lives. We have discussion boards where we talk about the current cases and current events. And we have a really strong community over there. You also get all the episodes ad free.

And then on top of that, you get a birthday shout out. It's a small net community. We love it. And we'd love for you to join. But that's going to do it for us, guys. We covered a lot there. Like I said, we'll keep you updated on Hayden's story. If there's developments that need to be covered and we'll be tracking it for sure.

We're going to have a new episode starting later this week. Not going to spoil it for you guys. Stephanie had told me this is a new. case that's really got her. I'm in it, yep. Her wheels turning. My wheels are turning and I'm connecting stuff that I don't think. And I, listen, there's a trial coming up.

So I hope that we find the prosecutors and the police are also looking and investigating the same things that I've been investigating. But I will tell you. She's on it. I did it first. So that's starting Friday on audio Sunday on YouTube. I'm looking forward to that I'm looking forward to hearing the story. Until then, please, everyone, stay safe out there. And we'll see you soon.

Bye. Hi.