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Hayden Panettiere’s Mother Says Boyfriend’s Story Doesn’t Add Up

"I don’t know how you can take a nap near someone who’s dying and not realize something’s wrong."

Virginia Kruta
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Actress Hayden Panettiere’s estranged mother says something smells off about the story on-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson is telling about her daughter’s death.

Lesley Vogel told The Daily Mail that she spoke with the police officer who responded to the Greenville, South Carolina, apartment — an Airbnb rental the actress was sharing with Hickerson and his brother, Zach — and told him she believed Brian was “culpable.”

Her main dispute was with the timeline presented by the brothers, who claimed that Brian had administered Narcan and the brothers jointly performed CPR while still on the line with 911. But Vogel said she did not believe either of the Hickersons just happened to be carrying Narcan at the time, suggesting that one of them must have left Panettiere unresponsive while he left to get some.

“I think there will be a discrepancy in the timeline, meaning Brian had to go out and buy the Narcan while he left her there because I do not believe he happened to have two bottles of Narcan on him, like he carried them around in his back pocket,” Vogel claimed.

Vogel also questioned another part of the story — namely that Zach Hickerson had returned from church to find Brian napping alongside the “Nashville” star — and asked how it was possible to sleep next to someone and not realize that she was dying. Brian, according to his brother, only woke from his nap when he heard loud knocking at the door because Zach could not unlock the door.

“I don’t know how you can take a nap near someone who’s dying and not realize something’s wrong,” she said. “I think Brian called his brother. My opinion. I think he knew she was deceased. Called his brother, and tried and built this story.”

Narcan kits, according to the South Carolina Department of Public Health, are available for free at any health department clinic location. They can also be purchased without a prescription at pharmacies all across the United States.

Vogel was widely panned for her previous comments about her actress daughter’s shocking death — just five days before what would have been her 37th birthday — when she said, “I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments. And I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry — it is a struggle, and it’s a very challenging industry, and it’s not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path.”

She blamed Hickerson from the beginning, saying, “This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death, and that was Brian Hickerson.”

“Although my daughter and I were estranged, it was not for lack of care or love. It was due to the involvement of a toxic individual who I believe led to her death,” Vogel told Entertainment Tonight in a statement.

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