Police report confirms former partner present at scene of Hayden Panettiere's death
A police incident report shows Hayden Panettiere's ex-boyfriend and his brother were at the South Carolina apartment complex where the actress suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead on Sunday.
A Greenville Police Department incident report indicates that Brian Hickerson, Hayden Panettiere's on-again/off-again partner, and his brother Zach Hickerson were present at the Judson Mill Lofts apartment complex in South Carolina when the 36-year-old actress went into cardiac arrest on Sunday. The report, heavily redacted, notes that responding officer Matthew Bryan first spoke with Zach, who was described as “very emotional,” while emergency medical services attended to Panettiere. Brian Hickerson reportedly did not show visible emotion until EMS declared her dead and presented a bag of medication she was taking at the time of her death.
Authorities received a 911 call around 1:50 p.m. reporting a cardiac arrest, made by an acquaintance of Panettiere. First responders initiated life-support measures, but resuscitation was unsuccessful and she was pronounced dead at 2:32 p.m. The Greenville County Coroner’s Office said an autopsy found no signs of trauma and that the cause of death remains pending further investigation.
Hickerson, an aspiring actor, had previously faced domestic-violence allegations involving Panettiere. He was arrested in 2019 on a charge of injuring a spouse or girlfriend, pleaded no contest in 2021, and received four years of probation. Panettiere had sought a restraining order against him in 2020 and discussed the abuse in her memoir published three months before her death.
Both Hickerson brothers did not respond to requests for comment, and the body-camera footage recorded by Officer Bryan has not been released.