The Prodigy star Keith Flint died by hanging and had cocaine, alcohol and codeine in his system at the time, an inquest has heard.
The 49-year-old was found dead at his home, in Essex in England, on March 4th. The coroner’s officer Linda Calder told Wednesday’s brief inquest hearing: “Mr Flint was found at his home address by a friend, hanging from a beam.” The postmortem noted the presence of cocaine, alcohol and codeine in his body but did not specify the amounts.
The county’s senior coroner, Caroline Beasley-Murray, recorded an open conclusion, adding that “we will never quite know what was going on in his mind on that date”. She said Flint’s family and band manager were aware of the hearing but did not wish to attend. The hearing was held in their absence, with no witnesses called to give evidence in person.
Police found no suspicious circumstances and no third-party involvement during their investigation, Beasley-Murray said. Explaining how she reached her conclusion, she said: “I’ve considered suicide. To record that, I would have to have found that, on the balance of probabilities, Mr Flint formed the idea and took a deliberate action knowing it would result in his death. Having regard to all the circumstances, I don’t find that there’s enough evidence for that.” She also found insufficient evidence to conclude his death was an accident, where he may have been “larking around and it all went horribly wrong”.