More details revealed about Hayden Panettiere death scene following police report
A police report has revealed some more details from the moment emergency services discovered Hayden Panettiere in a Greenvile Airbnb.
The Heroes actress tragically passed away on Sunday at the age of just 36, with initial reports suggesting that she had suffered a cardiac arrest, with paramedics declaring her dead at the scene.
While we've heard testimonies from those who live in the same building and had tributes from fellow celebrities including the father-of-her-child Wladimir Klitschko, what wasn't clear was who had made the 911 call.
A report has now revealed that Panettiere's on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson was also in the property at the time of her death, although it is claimed that he was asleep when she went into cardiac arrest, and it was actually his brother Zach who first discovered the American actress unresponsive.
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The heavily redacted report revealed that the responding officer first spoke with Zach who confirmed that the unresponsive woman in the chair was his brother's girlfriend.
“I observed Zach to be very emotional while EMS were working on Hayden. Brian did not become emotional until EMS declared her officially deceased,” the officer said.
Panettiere was declared dead at 2.32pm on Sunday 16 August and while her cause of death is still yet to be confirmed in an upcoming toxicology report, it is thought that an overdose could have led to her sudden cardiac arrest.
The former child star had appeared to end her relationship with Brian back in 2020 when domestic abuse allegations surfaced, and he later pled no contest to two counts of injuring a spouse or partner, which saw him spend a short period in jail, something which Panettiere hoped would help to 'change' him.
“I wanted Brian to be in jail just long enough to scare him, but not long enough where he’d become a worse person,” she wrote in her memoir that was released in May of this year. “I needed him to admit his wrongs and change because of them, but I didn’t want to traumatise him in an irreversible way.”
Meanwhile, Panettiere's mother Lesley Vogel, who had become estranged from her daughter following a rift and was no-contact at the point of her death, has also paid tribute to the Nashville star.
She said: "I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments.
"And I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry - it is a struggle and it's a very challenging industry and it's not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path.
"People, they feel pushed into things, even the managers and agents want to control them and I think it becomes very difficult to be true to yourself and I think Hayden sadly lost her way and I wish it were different."
A timeline of Hayden Panettiere’s troubled Hollywood career
August 1989
Hayden Panettiere is born to firefighter Skip Panettiere and Lesley Vogel, who would go on to be Hayden’s manager.
1990
Panettiere appears in a commercial at 11 months old, later landing recurring roles in soap operas as a child actor.
2004/2005
Aged 15, Panettiere said someone on her team started offering her ‘happy pills’. She later tells People: “They were to make me peppy during interviews.
"I had no idea that this was not an appropriate thing, or what door that would open for me when it came to my addiction.”
2006
Aged 17, Panettiere lands one of the defining roles of her career as Claire Bennett in Heroes.
2007-2009
Panettiere later reveals several disturbing incidents that happened during this period in her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning.
Aged 18, she claims she was led onto a yacht by ‘somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector’ and placed into bed next to an ‘undressed man who was very famous’.
In 2008, she alleged a network executive kissed her on the lips at a party.
Aged 19, she said a ‘well-respected, award-winning actor’ tricked her into looking at his testicles through an unzipped fly.
In 2007, she also starts dating Heroes co-star Milo Ventimiglia - she is 18 and he is 30. They split in 2009.
2009
Panettiere starts dating Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko.
Meanwhile, her father Skip is handed two years of informal probation after pleading ‘no contest’ to spousal battery.
2013
Panettiere and Klitschko get engaged.
December 2014
Panettiere and Klitschko’s daughter Kaya is born. Panettiere endures an incredibly difficult pregnancy, haemorrhaging during her c-section and being forced to undergo a three-hour surgery.
2015
Panettiere begins suffering severe post-partum depression. She later tells Jay Shetty on his On Purpose podcast: “I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. I wasn't connecting with [Kaya] the way I should be.”
She uses alcohol to manage her mental health struggles and enters treatment when Kaya is four months old.
She later says she became dependent on medication to sleep, and then turned to drinking vodka.
2018
Klitschko presents Panettiere with custody papers asking for full custody of Kaya. After initially fighting back, she eventually accepts and Kaya goes to live with Klitschko in Ukraine.
She writes in her memoir: “Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life”
Meanwhile, her long-running role in TV show Nashville comes to an end and she doesn’t have any more TV or film roles for five years.
In the same year, she starts dating actor Brian Hickerson.
2020
Panettiere spends an eight month stint in rehab.
She experiences brutal alcohol withdrawal symptoms including insomnia and intense headaches.
Meanwhile, her now-ex Hickerson is charged with felony assault.
2021
Hickerson pleads no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse/cohabitant/girlfriend/child's parent and is sentenced to 45 days in jail and four years probation.
2023
Panettiere returns to acting, reprising her role as Kirby Reed in Scream VI.
In the same year, her brother Jansen dies aged 28 from an enlarged heart.
May 2026
Panettiere releases her memoir in which she makes disturbing allegations against film stars and industry execs from when she was a teenager.
She also opens up on her experience of postpartum depression and comes out as bisexual.
August 2026
Panettiere tragically dies. Police say: “The preliminary investigation has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances.”
Topics: Hayden Panettiere, Celebrity News, Entertainment
James Moorhouse