Boyfriend of Hayden Panettiere was at apartment when actor died

Police report shows Brian Hickerson and his brother, Zach Hickerson, were at Greenville, South Carolina, residence

Hayden Panettiere’s on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother, Zach Hickerson, were at the South Carolina apartment where the actor died over the weekend , according to a police report released on Tuesday.

A Greenville police officer who responded to the residence on Sunday afternoon was met by the brothers and then observed paramedics performing CPR on an unresponsive woman, the report states.

“The patient did not seem to have any obvious physical reasons to be unresponsive,” the officer notes. After attempting lifesaving measures, the emergency workers declared Panettiere dead at 2.31pm.

No cause has been determined, and her death remains under investigation. An autopsy found no signs of trauma, and police said officers saw no signs of foul play.

The one-time child star, who soared to fame in the TV shows Heroes and Nashville while enduring struggles with alcohol addiction and depression, would have turned 37 on Friday.

Panettiere and Hickerson had been in a tumultuous relationship for years, with allegations the 37-year-old aspiring actor physically abused her.

He was charged in 2020 with multiple counts of felony abuse, and pleaded no contest to two counts of injuring a spouse or partner and served a short time in jail due to the case. He was sentenced to four years of probation and anger management and Alcoholics Anonymous sessions.

He completed the terms and recently asked a judge to reduce his conviction to misdemeanors; that request was denied on Thursday by a Los Angeles judge. Messages were sent on Tuesday seeking comment from Pat Carey, an attorney for Hickerson.

Panettiere wrote of Hickerson’s time behind bars, and how she hoped it would change him, in her memoir This Is Me, which came out in May.

“I wanted Brian to be in jail just long enough to scare him, but not long enough where he’d become a worse person,” she wrote. “I needed him to admit his wrongs and change because of them, but I didn’t want to traumatize him in an irreversible way.”

She wrote about her decision to “let go of my resentment” and try to forgive Hickerson, whom she’d met at a West Hollywood restaurant in 2018 after noticing his “charming smile”.

The police report, which is heavily redacted, said the responding officer first spoke with Zach Hickerson, who said the unresponsive woman was his brother’s girlfriend.

“I observed Zach to be very emotional while EMS were working on Hayden. Brian did not become emotional until EMS declared her officially deceased,” the officer said.