Warning: The article describes Liam Payne‘s state moments before his death. Please proceed with caution.
A CCTV footage that showed the final hours before Liam Payne fell to his death from a third-floor balcony of CasaSur Palermo hotel on Oct. 16 has left not just his girlfriend Kate Cassidy but his fans devastated and wondering if the tragedy could have been prevented in the first place.
The former One Direction singer was laid to rest on Nov. 20 yet the what-ifs still linger especially following the release of the video by Daily Mail. The clip shows him seemingly unconscious while being carried by three men through the hotel’s main lobby. A still image from the video showed the timestamp at 4:54:58 pm — 13 minutes before he plummeted to his death.
According to the outlet, the 31-year-old was acting erratically in the lobby for about an hour. An eyewitness had previously told the media that Payne was “convulsing” on the lobby floor before he passed out and had to be physically taken back to his room.
Strangely, another still image from the CCTV footage has the timestamp 4:54:37 pm, which showed the three men were already with the singer outside of his room 11 seconds before they were at the lobby. According to one guest, it takes at least 90 seconds from the lobby to the third floor, which means that one of the timestamps is incorrect.
According to another eyewitness, the 31-year-old kept going and coming out of his room and made a commotion forcing the hotel manager to step in. It’s unclear if the manager is one of the men in the video, but it was during this period that he called 911 to complain about a guest breaking things in his room and also expressed concern as the guest was in a room with a balcony.
At 5:11 paramedics arrived and found Payne at the hotel’s inner courtyard after having fallen 40 meters to his death. Local authorities said he was half unconscious when he fell and toxicology reports showed drugs in his system.
The CCTV footage has reportedly left Payne’s bereaved girlfriend Kate Cassidy sobbing over the possibility that his death could have been averted had help arrived sooner. A close friend of the model told the New York Post:
“Whenever it seems it can’t get more painful for Kate, it gets even more painful. He could have been saved, he could have been helped. It’s devastating — and infuriating.”
The CCTV footage had many asking why he didn’t receive medical help right away in the lobby and was carried back to his room where in his state he was in danger of falling from the balcony (just as the manager had pointedly expressed in his 911 call). The manager had shared his concern that the guest could do something potentially life-threatening.
1D fans are getting increasingly frustrated and concerned with the new revelations in Liam Payne death case. The video has left countless unable to make sense of why the singer was not given immediate medical aid or why the hotel did not call the ambulance and instead chose to take him up to his room and leave him unsupervised.
The tragedy is steadily becoming a mystery as the questions outnumber the few answers.