Hayden Panettiere 's mother, Lesley Vogel, made her first comments about the death of her daughter on Tuesday, putting scrutiny on Panettiere's on-again, off-again boyfriend, actor Brian Hickerson. "This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death, and that was Brian Hickerson," she told NBC News .
Hickerson and his brother, Zach, were reportedly inside the Greenville, South Carolina, apartment complex where Panettiere went into cardiac arrest. A police report, referenced by NBC News , described Zach as "very emotional," but that Brian remained composed until EMS pronounced the actress dead. During the encounter, Brian reportedly produced a "bag of medication" police say he said Panettiere had been taking.
Panettiere's cause of death remains under investigation , according to the Greenville County Coroner's Office. In the interview, Vogel said she didn't know much about the police investigation.
"There is a lot of history in the past that Brian has enabled Hayden many times, and this is why her father and I had been concerned for a long time about him," Vogel told NBC News.