Search Results: lifestyles

Carolyn Andriano, a victim of sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein whose testimony was crucial to putting away his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, has died.

There was no obituary or funeral service after she died earlier this year, and police in West Palm Beach, Florida, opened an investigation into her death. After The Daily Beast reached out for comment, police spokesman Mike Jachles told us that the investigation was concluding and that Carolyn died of an accidental overdose.

The 36-year-old mother-of-five had planned to start a new chapter in North Carolina, at a new house with a fireplace and half-acre lot with a chicken coop. Carolyn and her husband, John Pitts, had purchased the property just weeks before she was found unresponsive in a West Palm Beach hotel room on May 23.

Before her death, “she was ecstatic,” Carolyn’s mother, Dorothy Groenert. “She was all set up for a whole new lifestyle.”

Groenert says Carolyn’s death came as a shock because she was working on building a new life and texted her recently about being free of drugs and alcohol.

The way Groenert sees it, some things about her daughter’s overdose don’t make sense, and she wants cops to investigate further.

Jachles, however, said that Carolyn’s case would officially be closed this week. Officers on the scene took a statement from Pitts, who told them that Carolyn had been using drugs, and Carolyn’s brother, who rushed to the hotel after Pitts texted Groenert that Carolyn had died. Pitts tried to administer CPR and “was given directions over the phone with 911,” Jachles said.

Now Groenert is in a legal battle with Pitts over Carolyn’s will, which was filed in 2010 before she married him and which left her estate to her mother and two oldest children. Because the will hadn’t been updated, Pitts and his three kids with Carolyn were left out of her estate.