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Former Arizona Cardinals defensive end Josh Mauro was on a four-day bender and partying with a dancer he had met a week earlier when he died of an accidental drug overdose on April 23, according to a Phoenix Police Department case report obtained by The Arizona Republic.
Mauro, 35, snorted cocaine, drank tequila and partied with a friend and three women in the hours before his death at his home in Phoenix, a dancer at the party told the police.
She said that when she and the other women went upstairs to sleep, Mauro and his friend remained downstairs. When she awoke around noon the next day, she found Mauro alone and apparently dead on the floor, “looking blue and feeling cold,” then called 911 and tried to revive him.
The New York Post first reported the circumstances of his death.
The dancer told police that Mauro was “happy and a sweetheart,” “on a bender for four days,” and that he “would get frequent nosebleeds and would sweat after snorting cocaine.”
Police found a bottle cap with a white substance in it on a living room table, a white powdery substance near a rolled-up dollar bill on the kitchen counter and tissues with apparent blood on them and a syringe in a trash can near Mauro’s body.
The Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death an accidental overdose. A toxicology report performed as part of the autopsy found that Mauro tested positive for “fentanyl, cocaine, ethanol, and their metabolites as well as cannabinoids and caffeine.”
Mauro was born in the United Kingdom, raised in Texas and played at Stanford before breaking into the NFL as an undrafted free agent. He played eight NFL seasons, including six with the Cardinals, from 2014-17 and 2020-21. He also played for the New York Giants in 2018 and then-Oakland Raiders in 2019.
Mauro started 40 of 80 career games, including 29 of 55 with Arizona. He started two playoff games in the 2015 postseason, when the Cardinals reached the NFC championship game, and 13 of their 16 games during the 2016 regular season. He finished his playing career with five sacks, 130 tackles, five passes defended, two forced fumbles and one fumble recovery.
Mauro’s father first announced his son’s death on Facebook in April.
“With many tears and broken hearts,” Greg Mauro wrote, “yet anchored in the unshakeable certainty that our precious Josh Mauro is now healed and made new-living in the presence of the Lord — we humbly covet your prayers as our family walks through the devastating loss of our amazing son, brother, uncle, grandson and friend.”
Tips or story ideas? Email sports features and investigative reporter Jason Wolf at [email protected]. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @JasonWolf.
Please support local journalism. Start your online subscription today!
Sign up for AZCentral Preps Now. And be sure to subscribe to our daily sports newsletters so you don’t miss a thing!
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Former Cardinals player snorted coke, partied for days before fatal OD
Continue reading...
Mauro, 35, snorted cocaine, drank tequila and partied with a friend and three women in the hours before his death at his home in Phoenix, a dancer at the party told the police.
She said that when she and the other women went upstairs to sleep, Mauro and his friend remained downstairs. When she awoke around noon the next day, she found Mauro alone and apparently dead on the floor, “looking blue and feeling cold,” then called 911 and tried to revive him.
The New York Post first reported the circumstances of his death.
The dancer told police that Mauro was “happy and a sweetheart,” “on a bender for four days,” and that he “would get frequent nosebleeds and would sweat after snorting cocaine.”
Police found a bottle cap with a white substance in it on a living room table, a white powdery substance near a rolled-up dollar bill on the kitchen counter and tissues with apparent blood on them and a syringe in a trash can near Mauro’s body.
The Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death an accidental overdose. A toxicology report performed as part of the autopsy found that Mauro tested positive for “fentanyl, cocaine, ethanol, and their metabolites as well as cannabinoids and caffeine.”
Mauro was born in the United Kingdom, raised in Texas and played at Stanford before breaking into the NFL as an undrafted free agent. He played eight NFL seasons, including six with the Cardinals, from 2014-17 and 2020-21. He also played for the New York Giants in 2018 and then-Oakland Raiders in 2019.
Mauro started 40 of 80 career games, including 29 of 55 with Arizona. He started two playoff games in the 2015 postseason, when the Cardinals reached the NFC championship game, and 13 of their 16 games during the 2016 regular season. He finished his playing career with five sacks, 130 tackles, five passes defended, two forced fumbles and one fumble recovery.
Mauro’s father first announced his son’s death on Facebook in April.
“With many tears and broken hearts,” Greg Mauro wrote, “yet anchored in the unshakeable certainty that our precious Josh Mauro is now healed and made new-living in the presence of the Lord — we humbly covet your prayers as our family walks through the devastating loss of our amazing son, brother, uncle, grandson and friend.”
Tips or story ideas? Email sports features and investigative reporter Jason Wolf at [email protected]. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @JasonWolf.
Please support local journalism. Start your online subscription today!
Sign up for AZCentral Preps Now. And be sure to subscribe to our daily sports newsletters so you don’t miss a thing!
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Former Cardinals player snorted coke, partied for days before fatal OD
Continue reading...
