Coroner: Winehouse Died From Alcohol

Amy Winehouse didn’t have illegal substances in her body when she died, but a London coroner’s court heard that she did have sufficient alcohol in her system to be more than five times over the legal driving limit.

St. Pancras coroner Suzanne Greenway said the troubled singer, who spent the latter part of life battling booze and drugs, consumed sufficient alcohol to cause her death.

Detective Inspector Leslie Newman told the coroner two large empty bottles of vodka and one small bottle were found in her bedroom.

Winehouse was found to have 416mg of alcohol per decilitre of blood, more than enough to cause alcoholic poisoning.

The pathologist who produced the report said 200mg of alcohol per decilitre of blood is enough to cause someone to lose control of their reflexes and 350mg was considered fatal.

The Oct. 26 inquest was told Winehouse began drinking again after a three-week abstinence.

It recorded a verdict of misadventure on the singer, who was found in dead in her flat in Camden, north London, July 23. She was 27.

A post-mortem examination found her vital organs were in good health but she had huge amounts of alcohol in her system, which could have stopped her breathing and sent her into a coma.

The court also heard from the Winehouse’s live-in security guard Andrew Morris, who said he checked on the singer at 10 a.m. on the day she died and she’d been asleep.

When he returned at 3 p.m. she was still in the same position so he became worried and called the emergency services.

Dr. Christina Romete, Winehouse’s general practitioner, said she’d been treating the singer for a few years and that she’d seen her on the night before she died. She said she’d been “tipsy but coherent.”

She also said she warned Winehouse about her drinking and that Winehouse had fully understood the risks involved.
She said the late singer was headstrong about the ways she tried to deal with her drink battle.

Winehouse’s parents Mitch and Janis listened to the verdict from the public gallery and later released a statement saying it’s a relief to finally find out what happened to their daughter.

“It underlines how important our work with the Amy Winehouse Foundation is to us, to help as many young people and children as we can in her name,” they said. “It means a lot to us and, from the overwhelming messages of support we have had since Amy died, we know she meant a great deal to people all over the world.”

Winehouse’s breakthrough into the music business came in 2003 with the release debut album Frank, which was nominated for the Mercury prize.

Back To Black, her second album, broke in the U.S. to the extent that in 2008 she collected five Grammy awards.