Meth-induced heart attack killed English professor, report says

A heart attack caused by “acute methamphetamine and amphetamine intoxication" killed Sam See, the assistant English professor who died in a New Haven jail cell a few days before Thanksgiving.

That's the conclusion of Connecticut's chief medical examiner, as reported today by the New Haven Independent.

New Haven police arrested See and his husband on November 23, 2013, in a domestic dispute. Each man was charged with violating protective orders that were issued by a state court after an earlier dispute, in September.

According to a police account of the November arrests, See fought with a police officer, suffered a cut over his eye, and was treated at Yale-New Haven Hospital before being released and taken to the lockup. The next morning, guards found him unresponsive in his cell; they called for emergency help but See was declared dead.

The medical examiner's report does not reveal when See took the fatal dose of meth and amphetamines. New Haven police didn't answer the Independent's questions about whether he might have smuggled drugs into his jail cell, and a Yale-New Haven spokesman declined to say whether hospital protocols call for drug screening under circumstances like See's.

Last month, friends and family held a protest demanding answers about See's death. His English Department colleagues plan a memorial service for January 25 in Battell Chapel.