(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Officials conducted two toxicology exams on the body of alleged Trump shooter Thomas Crooks in the wake of his death, finding no drugs of abuse—but discovering elevated levels of lead, according to records obtained by Headline USA.
The toxicology exams, which this publication obtained following a roughly two-month legal battle, appear to be limited in scope. They show that Crooks tested negative for alcohol and drugs of abuse, but don’t include results for a wide variety of other drugs.
Two separate entities conducted toxicology exams on Crooks: The Allegheny County Medical Examiner, which also conducted the autopsy, and a private firm called NSM Labs.
According to the records, Allegheny County tested Crooks for alcohol and a wide variety of narcotics, including cocaine, opiates, fentanyl and methamphetamine—finding no trace of any of those substances. He also tested negative for benzodiazepines, which is a psychotropic used for anxiety and similar issues.
🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨
Read the alleged Trump Shooter’s toxicology results pic.twitter.com/ggcm6e6zIl— Headline USA (@HeadlineUSA) October 8, 2024
If Allegheny County’s drug screening tested for other drugs or therapeutics, they weren’t included in the reports obtained by this publication. Headline USA understands that toxicology exams typically don’t screen for all drugs when a subject’s cause of death is clear—which, in Crooks’s case, it is. However, in the extraordinary case of a presidential assassination attempt, officials arguably should have conducted the full battery of tests.
Allegheny County did have NSM Labs analyze Crooks’s blood for lead, arsenic, mercury and other compounds.
According to the NSM Labs results, Crooks tested positive for lead, antimony and selenium. Crooks’ lead levels were elevated—5.9 micrograms per deciliter, which exceeds the CDC’s acceptable limit of 5.0 mcg/dL—while the antimony and selenium levels were within “normal” ranges.
As the NSM Labs report referenced, elevated levels of lead can negatively affect brain development, lowering one’s IQ.
But it doesn’t appear that lead would cause the problems that may have been afflicting Crooks.
More Crooks toxicology records pic.twitter.com/yf7mnKNmSt
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) October 8, 2024
According to CBS, Crooks searched online in April about a “major depressive disorder.” Additionally, the FBI briefed the House Task Force investigating the Trump assassination attempts last month, telling members that Crooks exhibited strange behavior in the days leading up to the shooting, such as “walking around the house talking to himself” and “flapping his arms.”
And according to ABC News, “Investigators learned that throughout high school, Crooks would routinely sway back and forth while standing at the bus stop—but that Crooks never received any sort of formal diagnosis related to it.”
Headline USA obtained the two toxicology reports along with an autopsy report on Monday from the Butler County Coroner’s Office, following a roughly two-month open records dispute with both Butler and Allegheny counties. Read about that legal process here.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
