Two B.B. King heirs who were outspoken about the blues legend’s care in his final days have accused King’s two closest aides of poisoning him. The attorney for King’s estate called the claims ridiculous, and Las Vegas police Lt. Ray Steiber said there was no active homicide investigation. Three doctors determined that King was appropriately cared for and he received 24-hour care and monitoring by medical professionals “up until the time that he peacefully passed away in his sleep,” attorney Brent Bryson said Monday. Daughters Karen Williams and Patty King allege that family members were prevented from visiting while King’s business manager, LaVerne Toney, and his personal assistant, Myron Johnson, hastened their father’s death. Toney is named in B.B. King’s will as executor of an estate that according to court documents could total tens of millions of dollars. Johnson was at King’s bedside when he died May 14 at home in Las Vegas at age 89. No family members were present. “I believe my father was poisoned and that he was administered foreign substances,” Patty King and Williams say in identically worded sections of affidavits provided by their lawyer, Larissa Drohobyczer. “I believe my father was murdered,” they say. An autopsy was performed Sunday. Test results will take up to eight weeks to obtain and shouldn’t be affected by the fact that King’s body had been embalmed, Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg said. Fudenberg said in a statement Monday that there was no immediate evidence that King had been poisoned.
Jessica Lange will return to Broadway next spring in a production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, playing the same role she did 15 years ago in London. The Roundabout Theatre Company said Tuesday that the Oscar- and Emmy-winner will join Gabriel Byrne in a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s play in March. Jonathan Kent will direct the production at the American Airlines Theatre. Lange previously played the role of Mary Tyrone in a 2000 production of O’Neill’s familial drama in London, receiving an Olivier Award nomination for her performance as the morphine-addicted mother. The American Horror Story star made her Broadway debut in a 1992 production of A Streetcar Named Desire and returned to the stage in the 2005 revival of The Glass Menagerie.