{"id":670569,"date":"2026-03-21T03:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T03:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/670569\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T03:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T03:15:13","slug":"cause-of-death-for-austin-beutners-22-year-old-daughter-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/670569\/","title":{"rendered":"Cause of death for Austin Beutner’s 22-year-old daughter revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The death of Emily Beutner<\/a>, the daughter of former Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner, was the result of a combination of active compounds from the herbal substance kratom and prescription anti-psychotic and antidepressant medications, according to the L.A. County medical examiner.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old\u2019s death has been ruled a suicide, the medical examiner said in a statement Friday<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Emily Beutner was found by the side of a highway<\/a> in Palmdale after a passerby alerted authorities to a woman in a \u201cstate of medical distress\u201d shortly after midnight on Jan. 6, according to the L.A. County Sheriff\u2019s Department. She was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead at 2:10 a.m., according to the Medical Examiner. <\/p>\n

A month later, Austin Beutner announced he was ending his campaign for L.A. mayor, citing grief over his daughter\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

The medical examiner determined her death was due to the effects of mitragynine, 7-hydroxymitragynine, quetiapine and mirtazapine. A deputy medical examiner conducted an examination of her body on Jan. 15, and the cause and manner of death were certified Friday.<\/p>\n

Quetiapine is a prescription antipsychotic medication and mirtazapine is a prescription antidepressant. Mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine are active compounds found in kratom. All four substances can have sedating effects and slow or suppress breathing when combined, leading to death.<\/p>\n

Kratom is an herbal substance derived from the leaves of the Mitragyna speciosa tree, which has active compounds that can act like opioids at higher doses. 7-hydroxymitragynine, also known as 7-OH, is primarily responsible for opioid-like effects such as pain relief and euphoria.<\/p>\n

In November, the L.A. County Department of Public Health announced that it was banning<\/a> the sale of all products containing kratom and 7-OH after six kratom-related deaths<\/a> were reported in the county.<\/p>\n

Some toxicologists say there isn\u2019t enough research<\/a> to provide a comprehensive understanding of what concentrations of kratom or 7-OH can be acutely toxic in the body. Most kratom-related deaths have occurred when the substance is combined with other drugs.<\/p>\n

Emily Beutner was a student at Loyola Marymount University and was the youngest, and only daughter, of Beutner\u2019s four children.<\/p>\n

In a February statement announcing the end of his mayoral campaign, Beutner described her as \u201ca magical person, the light of our lives.\u201d <\/p>\n

Beutner served as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2018 to 2021. He also did a stint as former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa\u2019s \u201cjobs czar\u201d and spent roughly a year as publisher and chief executive of The Times.<\/p>\n

Times staff writers David Zahniser, Richard Winton, Noah Goldberg and Karen Garcia contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Suicide prevention and crisis counseling resources<\/p>\n

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional and call 9-8-8. The United States\u2019 first nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline 988 will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Text \u201cHOME\u201d to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death of Emily Beutner, the daughter of former Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner, was the result…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":670570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[283076,283074,66942,283075,151115,1582,276,29495,3603,4446,9704,236102,66944,2961,224,5337,40663,283078,3535,283077],"class_list":["post-670569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-22-year-old-daughter","tag-7-hydroxymitragynine","tag-7-oh","tag-active-compound","tag-austin-beutner","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-cause","tag-daughter","tag-death","tag-effect","tag-emily-beutner","tag-kratom","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-medical-examiner","tag-mitragynine","tag-prescription","tag-quetiapine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116264994401750667","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}