Three charged in Liam Payne’s death as his body is returned to the UK

Three people have been charged in the Oct. 16 death of 31-year-old singer Liam Payne in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
On Thursday, the local prosecutor’s office announced the investigation into the circumstances of the former One Direction star’s fall from a hotel balcony resulted in three suspects being criminally charged “with the crimes of abandonment of a person after death, supply and facilitation of narcotics.”  
Prosecutor Andrés Esteban Madrea, head of the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office in Argentina, said in the statement that one of the suspects is a person who allegedly accompanied Payne daily during his time in the city of Buenos Aires. They are charged with the “abandonment of a person followed by death,” which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
The second is a hotel employee who is accused of supplying the singer with cocaine twice during his stay, and the third person is alleged to have supplied drugs twice on Oct 14, two days before Payne’s death. Both are charged “with the crime of supplying narcotics”
Following a more than two-week investigation involving raids, cell phone analysis and toxicology tests, last weekend Payne’s body was released to his father, Geoff Payne, who had flown to Argentina following his son’s death.
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According to the prosecutor’s office, Payne’s stay at the Casa Sur hotel began Oct. 13. Investigators believe at least four narcotics deliveries were supplied to the singer in the days before his death.
The internal and external injuries Payne sustained were “compatible” with a fall from a third-floor balcony, according to Madrea, and third-party involvement was ruled out. Testing found Payne had traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his system in the 72 hours before his death.
Investigators currently believe he was in a state of partial or full unconsciousness at the time of his fall, and they ruled out the possibility that the fall was voluntary.
Per the statement, “Since the start of the investigation and within a few days, exhaustive and meticulous measures were put in place to make sense of the circumstances surrounding the artist’s death.” According to the statement, this included several dozen testimonies including hotel staff, family and friends, medical professionals, biochemists and psychiatrists.
“A detailed analysis of more than 800 hours of video footage from various security cameras at the hotel and others on public roads was also carried out,” the statement reads.
In investigating what led to Payne’s death, Argentinian authorities “(carried) out the forensic extraction of the contents of (Payne’s) cell phone. From this, their calls, messages, chats in messaging applications and social networks were analyzed.”
Payne spoke candidly in recent years about addiction and the mental health struggles he experienced during the peak of One Direction’s fame.
In a July 2023 video, his final video blog, Payne revealed that he’d gone to a “wonderful place” in Louisiana for nearly 100 days to “kind of go and get my head straight.” He also shared at the time that he hadn’t consumed alcohol in nearly six months.
“I had to kind of go away to get better, let’s say,” he said. “The whole thing got to that point of where it was just to kind of scramble to stay relevant.”
Payne earned global fame as part of the since-disbanded pop group One Direction, which was formed on the U.K. program “The X-Factor” in 2010. The band also comprised Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson.
Their first single “What Makes You Beautiful” became a worldwide hit, and after releasing five albums in five years, the band took an indefinite hiatus in 2016 following their fifth album, “Made in the A.M.” All members – including Malik, who left the group in March 2015 – went on to pursue solo careers.
Payne released several hit singles following the hiatus and dropped his first solo album, “LP1,” in December 2019. His 2017 track with Quavo, “Strip That Down,” entered the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. His other hits included the Rita Ora duet “For You,” which appeared on the “Fifty Shades Freed” soundtrack, and the Zedd collaboration “Get Low.”
His final release, a single titled “Teardrops,” revealed lyrics about feeling “broken” amid a heartbreak. Last month, music producer Sam Pounds revealed his song with Payne, “Do No Wrong,” would be posthumously released. Hours later, Pounds announced his decision to hold its release to allow Payne’s family time to mourn the singer.
Payne is survived by his 7-year-old child, Bear, whom he shared with British singer Cheryl Cole; his parents, Karen and Geoff Payne; and his sisters, Ruth Gibbins and Nicola Payne.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use disorders, you can call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). The service is free, confidential and available in English and Spanish.