A spokeswoman for the coroner’s office in Vancouver says it could take six to eight weeks to know what happened.
Cory Monteith.
Via: The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck, File / AP
The death of 31-year-old Glee star Cory Monteith — whose body was found Saturday in a Vancouver hotel — has shocked fans. Monteith voluntarily checked himself into a treatment center for substance addiction in the spring, so the assumption among both the media and social media speculators has been that the actor and singer died of a drug overdose.
In an email Sunday, a spokeswoman for the British Columbia Coroners Service laid out to BuzzFeed how the actual investigation into his death will proceed.
The Vancouver Coroner's Office is now the lead agency, taking over from the Vancouver Police Department, which is still working on the many questions in Monteith's death. The coroner's office is compiling the actor's medical records and both his recent and overall history "in such areas as medical, physical health, mental health, and substance use or misuse," the spokeswoman wrote. "We're going back weeks, months or years here, rather than just the past few days."
The police had already announced that the autopsy will take place Monday. The Coroners Service spokeswoman said the investigators hope to have enough information for that to be the case — if not, then it will occur on Tuesday.
It will not be a speedy process.
"If toxicology testing is required," she wrote, "the usual time frame for our lab is about six to eight weeks." The report will be issued publicly.
