Photo: WENN.com
The doctor accused of involuntary manslaughter in association with the death of Slipknot bassist Paul Gray has been acquitted of the charges.
Dr. Daniel Baldi, who was a pain-management specialist, had been charged with seven counts of involuntary manslaughter, one of which was over the death of Paul Gray in 2010.
Prosecutors had argued that Baldi had "recklessly" prescribed painkilling drugs, an overdose of which caused Gray's death.
Gray had previously struggled with addictions to the anti-anxiety Xanax, and prosecutors claimed that Baldi's prescription of the drug caused his addicction to once again spiral out of control.
Although Baldi had prescribed Xanax to Gray, it is unknown exactly where the bassist sourced the morphine and fentanyl that caused his death.
Listen to 'Duality' by Slipknot below
Yesterday, after two days of trial, Baldi was acquitted after his defence attorney Guy Cook contended that patients are responsible for taking their medication properly.
"You understand, do you not ma'am", posed Baldi's lawyer to Gray's widow Brenna Gray, "that if Paul got the morphine and the fentanyl on the street somewhere, that it's nobody's fault except Mr. Gray or the person he got it from?"
"I don't know where he got them," she said. "It's a hypothetical question. it's not fair."
Almost two years ago, when prosecutors first charged the doctor with the manslaughter of Gray, Slipknot's percussionist Shawn Crahan told The Des Moines Register, "None of it is going to bring back our brother Paul."
Below: Slipknot's Paul Gray, a life in pictures
