The family of a 23-year-old Connecticut woman is seeking answers after she was found dead in her apartment after meeting an older white man on Bumble. (Instagram)
After month-long inquiries by Lauren Smith Fields’ family, friends and folks online, the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has ruled on her cause of death. The announcement was made on Monday, per ABC News.
Apparently, Lauren passed away from “acute intoxication due to the combined effects of fentanyl, promethazine, hydroxyzine and alcohol.” Given the findings, the medical examiner has determined her cause of death to be an “accident.”
As previously reported, Lauren was found unresponsive in her apartment on December 12, 2021. Police arrived at Lauren’s place at 6:30 a.m. on the date mentioned and found her “lying on her back, on the floor.”
According to the official report, when police they arrived, a white man appeared “frantic” and was “trembling and visibly shaken” when he opened the door to Lauren’s apartment. He was the same person who called 911.
The met in person for the first time the night before Lauren died. They connected on the app Bumble three days before the meet. He said they were consuming alcohol shots then Lauren got sick inside her bathroom. The unnamed man said Lauren stepped outside for a second and then went to the bathroom for another 10-15 minutes.
Afterwards, they continued drinking alcohol. He says they fell asleep, but that when he woke up at 3 a.m. she was snoring. But when he woke up a few hours later, Lauren wasn’t breathing and had blood coming out of her nose.
Lauren’s family filed a legal notice last Friday that’s part of a planned lawsuit against the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and the Bridgeport Police Department. The family’s legal notice says police “failed to implement the proper crime scene investigation team to collect physical evidence.” Additionally, Bridgeport police “refuse to view the last person to see Smith-Fields before she died as a person of interest.”
Family attorney Darnell Crosland spoke of the handling of the case during an interview on ‘Good Morning America.’
“Lauren Smith-Fields wasn’t given the treatment that she should have been given,” Darnell said.
He also said, “You expect the police to follow protocol, which is to question the gentleman that was at the scene, take his DNA, compare it to the physical evidence that’s present.”
Well, the family is saying police did not follow this protocol. Instead, police handled the case in what Lauren’s brother Lakeem Jetter says is a “disgusting way.”
“The way they handled her investigation was literally disgraceful, disgusting, horrible. It was not even human,” Lakeem said.
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