By David J. Krajicek on Aug 23, 2013

A coroner’s report that found traces of narcotics in the remains of journalist Michael Hastings has helped frame the prevailing story of his death as a tragic, troubled-soul narrative.

He apparently had relapsed into drug use, and just hours before the muckraker was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, a sibling had arrived to urge him into rehab.

But in the broadest post-mortem profile to date, Gene Maddaus writes in the LA Weekly that Hastings told a neighbor he feared that the rental Mercedes sedan he died in had been tampered with. Maddaus writes:

“One night in June, he came to (neighbor Jordanna) Thigpen’s apartment after midnight and urgently asked to borrow her Volvo. He said he was afraid to drive his own car. She declined, telling him her car was having mechanical problems.

“He was scared, and he wanted to leave town,” she says.

“The next day, around 11:15 a.m., she got a call from her landlord, who told her Hastings had died early that morning. His car had crashed into a palm tree at 75 mph and exploded in a ball of fire.”

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