LOS ANGELES — Months after the death of adult performer Violet Rain in a Boyle Heights hospital in mid-March, after she was dropped off there unconscious a few days before, the official Cause and Manner of Death have quietly surfaced.
The Case Detail (summary) available from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner's office reveals that the Violet Rain case, listed under the performer's legal name, was handled by pathologist Dr. Paul Gliniecki, the Deputy Medical Examiner, and Jeffrey Guilmette, a Deputy Coroner Investigator.
XBIZ had checked with the coroner's office on May 25, over two months after Rain's passing, and the Public Information Officer (PIO) had said that the autopsy had been "deferred."
The autopsy seems to have been completed between late May and early September. Last week, a report examining theories about Rain's passing mentioned that the Case Detail had quietly become available.
The Case Detail specifies the Place of Death as "Hospital" and the Manner of Death as "Undetermined." The date of death recorded is March 13, 2019, when Rain was 19 years of age.
While the Manner of Death was undetermined by the coroner's office, Dr. Gliniecki and Deputy Investigator Guilmette established the Cause of Death as Cause A, "Anoxic encephalopathy" and a related Cause B, "Combined effects of cocaine, ethanol and other undetermined factors."
The National Center for Biotechnology Information defines anoxic encephalopathy, or hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, as a "process that begins with the cessation of cerebral blood flow to brain tissue, which most commonly results from poisoning (for example carbon monoxide or drug overdose), vascular injury or insult, or cardiac arrest."
According to the NCBI, "many patients who suffer anoxic brain injury expire without regaining full consciousness."
The "anoxic" description indicates that Rain's brain did not get any oxygen for a period of time. The less lethal hypoxic brain injury occurs when the brain gets some oxygen but not enough. The extent of brain damage for both hypoxic and anoxic brain injuries depends on the amount of time, even minutes or seconds, that the brain lacks necessary oxygen levels.
The Cause of Death determined by the coroner indicates the specific injury or disease that led to the passing. The Manner of Death indicates how the examiners believe the causes of death led to the passing. There are only five manners of death: natural, accident, suicide, homicide and undetermined.
Rain's manner of death was described as "undetermined" by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner's office.
The medical Case Status, according to the Case Detail, is officially "Closed."