Las Vegas police say there’s no active homicide investigation of the death of B.B. King, despite claims by two of the blues legend’s heirs that King’s two closest aides poisoned him.
Homicide Lt. Ray Steiber said on Monday that any police action will depend on autopsy findings.
Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg says there’s no immediate evidence supporting allegations by a lawyer who says she represents King’s heirs.
Daughters Karen Williams and Patty King allege King’s business manager, LaVerne Toney, and his personal assistant, Myron Johnson, hastened their father’s death.
An autopsy was performed on King’s body on Sunday, and results of forensic tests are expected to take up to eight weeks.
Fudenberg says his investigation won’t delay upcoming services for King in Memphis, Tennessee, and his hometown of Indianola, Mississippi.
Three doctors determined that King was appropriately cared-for, and King received 24-hour care and monitoring by medical professionals “up until the time that he peacefully passed away in his sleep”, attorney Brent Bryson said on Monday.
Daughters Karen Williams and Patty King allege that family members were prevented from visiting while King’s business manager, LaVerne Toney, and his personal assistant, Myron Johnson, hastened their father’s death.
Toney is named in King’s will as executor of an estate that according to court documents filed by lawyers for some of King’s heirs could total tens of millions of dollars.
Johnson was at B.B. King’s bedside when he died on May 14 in hospice care at home in Las Vegas at age 89. No family members were present.
“I believe my father was poisoned and that he was administered foreign substances,” Patty King and Williams say in identically worded sections of affidavits.
“I believe my father was murdered,” they say.
Toney and Johnson each declined to comment on the accusations.
“They’ve been making allegations all along. What’s new?” said Toney, who worked for King for 39 years and had power-of-attorney over his affairs.
