XPost: rec.scouting.usa, alt.politics.homosexuality, alt.california
XPost: sac.politics
A man who gained fame for spending thousands of dollars on
plastic surgery in a bid to look like pop star Justin Bieber
died last year from a lethal mix of pain killers, alcohol and
anti-anxiety medicine, authorities said.
Tobias M. Strebel, better known as Toby Sheldon, was found dead
Aug. 21, 2015, in a Motel 6 along Roscoe Boulevard in North
Hills, according to an autopsy report issued Monday by the Los
Angeles County coroner’s office.
Strebel, 35, had been reported missing more than three days
before his body was found.
When paramedics responded to the room, they found Strebel’s
partly decomposed body, with some maggots around his head and
neck. He was found with his arms outstretched and lying across
the foot of the bed, according to the report.
A desk inside the motel room had bottles labeled “vitamin C,”
although the bottles contained diazapam, which is used to treat
anxiety and seizures, as well as temazepam, a sedative used to
treat insomnia. An insulin bottle and syringes were also in the
room, according to the report.
Lab tests showed Xanax, Valium, and Ativan in his liver, along
with codeine and morphine.
Analysis of Strebel’s death has been marked by delays. The Los
Angeles County coroner’s office said last year that it had not
conclusively identified the body as Strebel's, partly because of
difficulties reaching his mother in Germany and the decomposed
state of his body.
The toxicology report was not signed off on until May 19 —
nearly 10 months after his death.
Strebel, a native of Nuremberg, Germany, came alone to the U.S.
to pursue a songwriting career, according to his manager, Gina
Rodriguez.
Although he admitted to undergoing hair transplants starting in
2004, most of which failed, he said, his plastic surgery
exploits didn’t appear to ramp up until after 2008, when Bieber
skyrocketed to fame.
“I didn’t necessarily listen to his music or fawn over him as a
celebrity, but his face was just so flawless; every change I
made was modeled after him,” Strebel told the Daily Mail in 2012.
In addition to working as a Bieber lookalike, he was employed at
a nursing home in Inglewood.
“For all the slings and arrows put forth against him, he always
held his head high,” Rodriguez said of Strebel after his death.
“He had a genuine talent and love for songwriting and it showed
in everything he did.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bieber-lookalike- toby-sheldon-overdose-20160725-snap-story.html
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