Katie Gallagher, a well-known fashion designer who famously clothed Lady Gaga before she inexplicably turned up dead at her Manhattan apartment last July, was allegedly killed by a drug cocktail during an accused burglary, according to alarming information provided by New York authorities on Friday.
The cause of Gallagher’s death has been a mystery from the beginning. A worried neighbor reportedly discovered her front door ajar on a Friday night with the keys still in the lock before discovering her dead. Gallagher’s dead body was reportedly on the bed when the neighbor’s entered her apartment. The mystery was furthered by the fact that she had no overt evidence of trauma.
The perplexing case, however, took a concerning turn on Friday when a coroner found that Gallagher had passed away of “acute intoxication” caused by a drug cocktail containing fentanyl, ethanol and p-fluorofentanyl, NBC New York reported.
The harrowing finding led the NYPD to rule Gallagher’s death a homicide, with the coroner linking it to “drug-facilitated theft.No information regarding what, if anything, was taken from Gallagher’s Chinatown flat has been made public, and police have not yet named one or many culprits.
Similar-themed murders have recently shook Manhattan. Two men who were robbed last year also perished from a narcotic combination that included fentanyl, p-fluorofentanyl, and ethanol, the city coroner discovered earlier this month.
The night before they died, robbers emptied the checking and savings accounts of those two men, political consultant John Umberger, 33, and social worker Julio Ramirez, 25, taking more than $37,000, according to PIX 11.
A member of the Gallagher family who could be reached by phone on Friday denied The Daily Beast’s request for an interview.
During New York Fashion Week, Katie Gallagher walked the runway before showcasing her own line.
Gallagher grew up in rural Pennsylvania before being accepted into the Rhode Island School of Design. It was there that her talent caught the attention of Lady Gaga’s stylist Nicola Formichetti, who quickly hired her to design some of the pop star’s most iconic suits before she even graduated. Fashion reported.