Flesh eater in Miami did not have bath salts in body. Now what? [View all]

[mfcorey1]

Rudy Eugene, the man who chewed off a homeless man’s face on the MacArthur Causeway and was shot to death by Miami police, had no drugs in his system other than marijuana, the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s office said Wednesday.

On May 26, Eugene stripped off his clothes along the causeway from Miami Beach before attacking 65-year-old Ronald Poppo in a ghoulish, drawn-out assault in plain view on a city sidewalk captured by a Miami Herald security camera. Eugene was shot by a police officer who found him chewing chunks off Poppo’s face.

The bizarre details of the attack prompted speculation that the 31-year-old attacker was under the influence of harder drugs. Soon after the incident, for example, the head of the Miami police union publicly speculated that Eugene was on “bath salts,” synthetic stimulants that have been blamed for seemingly psychotic episodes in other cases around the country.

But the medical examiner — after seeking help from an outside forensic toxicology lab — could find no evidence of the common components of “bath salts” in Eugene’s system. Nor did the lab find evidence of synthetic marijuana or LSD.

The medical examiner also found that Eugene had not ingested cocaine, heroin, PCP, oxycodone, amphetamines or any other known street drug other than marijuana — a drug not known for sparking violence.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/27/2871098/mes-report-eugene-had-no-drugs.html