MINNEAPOLIS _ Investigators searching Paisley Park within hours of Prince's death last April found prescription medications in pharmaceutical bottles labeled in the name of a friend and business associate, and a pamphlet on how to be weaned from drugs, according to search warrants unsealed Monday.
But they found nothing that would confirm the source of the powerful drug fentanyl that killed the musician. Investigators said they found no prescriptions under Prince's name.
Prince, 57, died April 21 from an accidental, self-administered overdose of fentanyl, according to a report released last June by the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office. The report gave no indication of how Prince obtained the painkiller, nor did it list any other cause of death or "significant conditions."
Authorities have said neither foul play nor suicide is suspected.
Carver County authorities investigating Prince's death executed a total of 11 search warrants between April 21, the day two of Prince's associates found his lifeless body inside a Paisley Park elevator, and Sept. 19. The warrants were unsealed Monday, nearly a year after his death. It's unclear whether other search warrants related to the investigation exist and remain under seal.
Kirk Johnson, Prince's drummer, friend and longtime business associate, told investigators at Paisley Park in the hours after he and Meron Bekure, Prince's personal assistant, found the musician's body in an elevator, that Prince was struggling with opioid abuse and withdrawal, according to the search warrant affidavits.
Johnson, who was also head of Paisley Park security, also told them that Prince reported "not feeling well" in the hours before he died, the documents said.
Authorities were called to Paisley Park, located in the Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen, at 9:43 a.m. April 21 after Prince's body was discovered. Despite attempts by emergency responders to revive him, he was pronounced dead less than a half-hour later.
Prince had not been seen or heard from since 8 p.m. April 20, according to the documents released Monday. He may have been dead for as long as six hours.
According to the warrant affidavits:
Investigators found six people at the death scene when they arrived, including Andrew Kornfeld, who had arrived in the Twin Cities at 6 a.m. that day on a mission to meet with Prince and assess him for a drug dependency program run by his father, Dr. Howard Kornfeld. He told detectives that he had controlled substances in his backpack that he brought along to help Prince, but would not have administered them without a doctor present. He said his father was unaware that he had brought the medications.
Authorities found a pamphlet for Howard Kornfeld's "Recovery Without Walls" program in the Purple Rain room at Paisley Park.
Dr. Michael Todd Schulenberg told detectives that he had treated Prince on two occasions _ April 7 and 20 of last year. He said he had issued a prescription for oxycodone, an opiate, under Johnson's name to protect the star's privacy.
Prince, an intensely private person, traveled under the name Peter Bravestrong to help protect his identity. That name was on a luggage tag during his trip to Atlanta to perform in concert the week before his death. It was on the return trip to the Twin Cities that Prince's private plane made an emergency stop in Moline, Ill., after the musician fell ill and passed out. Paramedics scrambled to revive him on the tarmac, and he recovered after two shots of naloxone, an overdose antidote increasingly being used and often referred to by its brand name Narcan.
Johnson told doctors in Moline that Prince may have taken Percocet. Prince was documented as suffering from an opiate overdose, but the musician refused treatment at the hospital.
At a meeting with medical professionals "to assess and address" health concerns, Prince later admitted to taking one or two "pain pills" that night.
The search warrant affidavits unsealed Monday show that investigators conducted interviews far and wide, poring over cellphone records and email accounts in hopes of finding answers to the source of the fentanyl.
The search warrants say that Prince had no cellphone because he'd been hacked years earlier. He communicated by email and by landline. Investigators searched those accounts. They also searched cell tower records to determine who might have been communicating about the death shortly after his body was found.
Authorities also searched the cellphone records of several associates, including Johnson, and conducted a June 16 interview with the singer Judith Hill. Investigators later learned that she had been involved in a romantic relationship with Prince since fall of 2014. She said she communicated with Prince through an email account set up under the name of one of Prince's former managers, Julia Ramadan.
Sources told the Star Tribune in the days after Prince's death that a joint state and federal criminal investigation, which is still ongoing, has focused on his use of painkillers and how he obtained them. Fentanyl was never prescribed to Prince, according to the search warrant affidavits. The drug is considered highly potent and addictive and is prescribed to patients who have become tolerant of other opioids for pain relief.
Investigators searching Paisley Park the day Prince died retrieved dozens of pills _ many of which were labeled as hydrocodone, according to a search warrant affidavit. The controlled substances were not contained in typical prescription pill bottles, but instead stored in various other containers such as vitamin bottles found in multiple areas of the complex, including Prince's bedroom.
The Star Tribune reported last year that some of those pills later tested for synthetic fentanyl. A source familiar with the case said investigators have been working on the theory that Prince did not know the pills he ingested contained fentanyl.
According to the source, an autopsy revealed so much fentanyl in the singer's system that the dosage would have been fatal for anyone.
Carver County Chief Deputy Jason Kamerud gave no indication Monday when the investigation might end, or what the final outcome might be.
"We've gained a lot of progress over the last year," he said, "but there still is some more work to be done."
