NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- The summer 2022 death of acclaimed New York City fashion designer Katie Gallagher has been ruled a homicide, police said Friday.
The NYPD’s announcement came exactly eight months after Gallagher was found dead at her Eldridge Street apartment on the Lower East Side last July 24.
Cops on Friday identified the victim as Gallagher, an internationally recognized fashion designer who dressed celebs like Lady Gaga, Rita Ora, Laverne Cox and Daphne Guinness, according to her obituary. Her work was featured in outlets like Vogue and Elle, and her collections premiered at fashion weeks in New York and Paris.
NYPD officers responding to a 911 call found Gallagher, 35, lying on her bed unconscious and unresponsive just before 9 p.m. She had no obvious signs of trauma and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
The medical examiner's office determined her death was caused by fentanyl, ethanol and p-fluorofentanyl, the latter being a synthetic opioid like fentanyl.
Her manner of death was found to be drug-facilitated theft, which suggests she may have been drugged as part of a robbery, though police didn’t immediately say if items had been stolen from the apartment.
Her obituary from last summer noted that she “died unexpectedly at her home in New York City” but that the “exact cause of death is yet to be determined.”
According to her obituary, Gallagher was working on the 27th collection for her eponymous fashion line, which she planned to show in the fall, at the time of her death.
No arrests have been reported in the case, police said, as the investigation continues.
In a case that has not been linked to Gallagher’s death, a man was charged in December with causing the fatal overdoses of two people as part of a robbery crew’s scheme to drug and rob clubgoers on the Lower East Side.
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