Hayden Panettiere's death: Boyfriend and his brother were present at apartment, police report reveals

New details have emerged about the death of actor Hayden Panettiere, with a Greenville police report confirming that her on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother Zach were inside the South Carolina apartment when she died over the weekend.

What the police says

According to the report, released Tuesday, as quoted by the Associated Press, a responding officer arrived at the residence Sunday afternoon and was met by the two brothers before finding paramedics already performing CPR on an unresponsive Panettiere. The officer wrote that "the patient did not seem to have any obvious physical reasons to be unresponsive." Despite efforts to revive her, she was pronounced dead at 2:31 p.m.

Authorities have not determined a cause of death, and the case remains open. An autopsy turned up no evidence of trauma, and police stated they found no indication of foul play at the scene. Panettiere, known for her breakout roles in Heroes and Nashville, had also spoken publicly about her battles with alcohol addiction and depression. She was just days away from her 37th birthday.

A history of abuse

Panettiere's relationship with Brian Hickerson, 37, had long been marked by turmoil, including past allegations that he had physically abused her, according to AP. In 2020, he was charged with several felony counts of abuse and ultimately pleaded no contest to two counts of injuring a spouse or partner, serving brief jail time as part of the resolution. His sentence included four years of probation along with mandated anger management and Alcoholics Anonymous programs, the outlet observes.

Hickerson had since completed his probation terms and had petitioned a Los Angeles judge to downgrade his conviction to misdemeanors, a request that was rejected just days earlier, on Thursday.

According to the Associated Press, in her memoir This Is Me, published in May, Panettiere reflected candidly on Hickerson's incarceration and her hope that it might change him: "I wanted Brian to be in jail just long enough to scare him, but not long enough where'd he become a worse person. I needed him to admit his wrongs and change because of them, but I didn't want to traumatise him in an irreversible way." She also described choosing to release her anger and work toward forgiveness, recalling how the two first connected in 2018 at a West Hollywood restaurant.

Officer's account of the scene

The released report, which contains significant redactions, describes the responding officer's initial conversation with Zach Hickerson, who identified the unresponsive woman as his brother's girlfriend. The officer noted a stark contrast in the brothers' reactions: "I observed Zach to be very emotional while EMS were working on Hayden. Brian did not become emotional until EMS declared her officially deceased."

Once Panettiere was declared dead, officers escorted both men from the apartment. The officer later spoke privately with Brian Hickerson, though those details are blacked out in the public report, as is a list of medications Panettiere had reportedly been taking.

Speaking about mental health struggles

In her memoir, Panettiere wrote candidly about the toll early fame took on her, including her struggles with alcohol and the postpartum depression she experienced following the 2014 birth of her daughter, Kaya, with former boxer Wladimir Klitschko.

Kaya, now 11, has lived full-time with her father in Ukraine since she was two years old — a period when Panettiere was contending with serious mental health and addiction challenges. She entered treatment in 2015 while still filming Nashville. Speaking to podcaster Jay Shetty this past May, she pushed back on public perception of that decision: "I think there's been this very common misconception that I just gave up my child. That could not be farther from the truth."

Klitschko addressed her death in an Instagram statement Tuesday, saying he would ensure their daughter carries forward her mother's memory: "She built an incredible career through immense talent, while also facing the darker sides of a very demanding industry. Nothing will erase the times we shared or the place she had in our lives."

Loss was no stranger to Panettiere's family. Her parents eventually divorced after a difficult marriage, and her younger brother Jansen, also an actor, died in 2023 at age 28 from a heart condition.

With inputs from the Associated Press