Brian Blanco/Getty ImagesUPDATE: Jose Fernandez had cocaine in his system when he was killed in a boat crash last month off Miami Beach, the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner's office told CNN Saturday. According to officials, the MLB pitcher was also legally drunk with a blood-alcohol concentration of .147.
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Miami Marlins' pitcher Jose Fernandez and his friends Emilio Jesus Macias and Eduardo Rivero died last month in a fatal boat crash off Government Cut in South Beach.
According to a search warrant affidavit obtained on Wednesday by E! News, the associate medical examiner said that all three bodies, individually, had a strong odor of alcohol emanating from them.
The toxicology tests for all three men are complete but have yet to be released by state investigators, citing an exemption in the public records law for open criminal investigations, according to The Miami Herald. None of the autopsy reports have been released.
Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida Judge Martin Zilber approved a warrant to search the 32-foot vessel, a SeaVee boat named "Kaught Looking," which was owned by Fernandez.
The warrant alleges that investigators found evidence that the driver of the vessel, whoever it was, was driving at high speed and with a "recklessness" that was "exacerbated by the consumption of alcohol."
The affidavit states the crimes under investigation are Boating Homicide While Intoxicated and Vessel Homicide, although it is not known what charges, if any, will be brought into the case.
The affidavit references a receipt for alcohol from American Social Bar & Kitchen in Brickell, and they did not name who was carrying the receipt in their pocket but did specify that it had a date and time.
The crash remains under investigation by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission. The search warrant asked to seize and examine the two Garman GPS devices and two 350 hour power Mercury verado outboard motors that were on the vessel.
The 24-year-old pitcher's story is an inspiring one because, after numerous attempts to leave Cuba which resulted in jail time, he finally defected to the United States in 2008 when he was 15. In that final and successful attempt, 15-year-old Fernández jumped into the ocean to save his mother, who had gone overboard after their boat had hit large waves.
He was then drafted in 2011 by the Miami Marlins and went on to be named National League Rookie of the Year 2013 and a two-time All-Star.
(Originally published October 26, 2016 at 5:10 p.m. PST)