Singer and rapper Aaron Carter accidentally drowned in his bathtub as a result of sedatives he’d taken and gas used in spray cleaners he had inhaled, a coroner’s report said Tuesday.
Carter, the younger brother of the Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter, was found submerged and dead at age 34 in the bathtub of his home in Lancaster, California, on Nov. 5, the autopsy report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner said.
Sheriff’s deputies had been the last people to see Carter alive when they visited his house at 2 a.m. on Nov. 4 for a welfare check after he had been seen and heard “huffing” an inhalant on an Instagram live video, according to a police report included in the autopsy findings. He asked the deputies to leave, and they did.
The autopsy found that the sedative alprazolam, often sold under the brand name Xanax, was found in his system, as was the compressed gas difluoroethane, which the report says is “a gas commonly used as a propellant in air spray cleaners,” which “can induce feelings of euphoria when inhaled.”
The two substances incapacitated him in the tub, and caused the drowning, the report said.
Later in the evening, after deputies checked on Carter, he missed an appointment with a drug counselor, the police report said.