Peaches Geldof died of heroin overdose: Coroner

Los Angeles: Late model and TV journalist Peaches Geldof died of heroin overdose, said a coroner. According to a leading news website, Geldof had been receiving treatment for heroin addiction for the past two-and-a-half-year, and had been taking the substitute drug methadone. She relapsed and began taking the class A drug again two months before she died, the inquest heard. The inquest, held in Gravesend, Kent, was told that there was codeine, methadone and morphine in Geldof`s blood, the latter coming from heroin, and that the levels were within the fatal range. On the bed next to where she was found dead on 7 April was "a small clear coloured cap thought to have come from a syringe" and a pair of knotted black tights. Under the bed was "a dessert spoon … with visible burn marks on the underside and a small amount of a brown residue". Large quantities of "importation quality heroin" were also found. The coroner noted that the drugs were 61 percent pure, considerably higher than the usual 25 percent of street-grade heroin, making it more dangerous, particularly for someone whose tolerance was low. Roger Hatch, the coroner, concluded that the cause of the 25-year-old`s death was opiate intoxication.