Liam Payne: Police pictured searching hotel where singer found dead
Officers have been pictured searching the Casa Sur hotel in Buenos Aires, where the 31-year-old former One Direction star died on 16 October.
Friday 25 October 2024 08:55, UK
Police officers in Argentina are continuing to search the hotel where Liam Payne was found dead last week, new photos reveal.
A special investigations unit went to the Casa Sur hotel in Buenos Aires on Wednesday night on orders from the public prosecutors' office.
Officers seized items including computer hard drives and footage from hotel cameras, a government official told The Associated Press.
Payne fell from a third-floor balcony on 16 October, sparking an outpouring of tributes for the 31-year-old singer.
A toxicology exam on the former One Direction singer's body has not yet been completed, Argentinian authorities said, after there were reports of cocaine being found in his system.
The results of that exam as well as a histopathological report are needed before the body can be released to the family, a representative of the local public prosecutor's office told the singer's father Geoff Payne, who is in Argentina.
These results are not expected to be made public for several weeks.
Investigators found what appeared to be narcotics and alcohol strewn around broken objects and furniture in Payne's hotel room, leading public prosecutors to suggest he had suffered a substance abuse-induced breakdown around the time of his fall.
Authorities said Payne could have been in a state of "semi or total unconsciousness" when he fell from his hotel balcony.
It comes as Payne's girlfriend of two years Kate Cassidy revealed the pair had planned on getting married next year.
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Ms Cassidy, 25, had been in Argentina with Payne until two days before his death.
She wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday: "A few weeks ago, we sat outside on a beautiful evening manifesting our lives together.
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"I keep your note close, even though you told me not to look at it. It said 'me and Kate to marry within a year/engaged & together forever 444'.
"Liam, I know we'll be together forever, but not in the way we had planned. You'll always be with me. I've gained a guardian angel."