Coroner: Drugs Found in Scott Ruffalo's System

Scott Ruffalo was on something before he died, though the fact that drugs may have contributed to his death two months ago is apparently negligible.

The mystery surrounding the death of Mark Ruffalo's brother just got a little more clouded.

The Los Angeles Coroner's Office today confirmed that extensive toxicology tests showed  Scott Ruffalo had slight amounts of cocaine, morphine and alcohol in his system at the time he was fatally shot Dec. 1 in what the lone witness claimed was a game of Russian roulette.

"We found very light trace of cocaine and morphine and minimal amount of alcohol. In other words he wasn't drunk or high on drugs when this happened," Coroner spokesman Ed Winter tells E! News.

"Our findings indicate the cocaine in the blood was 0.03 milligrams and 0.04 milligrams/micrograms for the opiate morphine. The morphine could have been as the result of medication."

Winter says the police will use the report in the ongoing investigation.

Scott Ruffalo, a 39-year-old hairstylist and younger sibling of the Hollywood actor, died in the hospital Dec. 8 after being removed from life support. His death came one week after he was discovered in his Beverly Hills apartment with a gunshot wound to the head.

After the initial autopsy, the coroner determined that someone else had shot him but withheld a full report on the cause of death pending toxicology tests.

In the wake of the shooting, 26-year-old Shaha Mishaal Adham turned herself in to police for questioning. But she was released without charge, and her attorney, Ronald Richards, claimed Ruffalo accidentally killed himself while playing Russian roulette.

Meanwhile after a period of mourning, Mark Ruffalo has gone back to work, directing and starring in the tenatively titled indie drama, Sympathy For Delicious, costarring Orlando Bloom, Juliette Lewis, and Ruffalo's You Can Count On Me partner, Laura Linney.

 

"The doctor's opinion was the cause of death was a single gunshot to the head," Winter says. "The injury appears inconsistent with the history provided by witnesses and further police investigation has failed to clear up these inconsistencies. Therefore we're ruling it a homicide until proven otherwise."