Andrew Koppel, Son of Ted Koppel, Found Dead After Night of Drinking
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) It may be weeks before tests determine what killed Andrew Koppel, the 40-year-old son of former ABC News anchor Ted Koppel, authorities said Tuesday.
Andrew Koppel was declared dead around 1:30 a.m. Monday in an uptown Manhattan apartment, Detective John Sweeney said.
An autopsy was performed Monday but results were pending further study, including toxicology and tissue testing. Additional tests were needed to determine the manner and cause of death.
Koppel had been drinking for hours with a man he met at a bar, the New York Post reported Tuesday.
"He had a straw hat on, and I had one on, and he said, 'Nice hat, man,'" his drinking partner, Russell Wimberly, told the newspaper. "We got to talking, and he started buying me drinks." Wimberly said that Koppel drank whiskey, and that neither man had anything to eat all day.
Wimberly said that after drinking, he and Koppel eventually wound up at the apartment, which belonged to Wimberly's friend, Belinda Caban.
Koppel "was just really messed up when he came in. He was very drunk," Caban also told the Post.
After a couple of hours, she and Wimberly said he appeared not to be breathing. They called 911.Koppel was the third youngest of Ted Koppel's four children with his wife Grace Anne. He was their only son.
According to the New York Post, Andrew Koppel was convicted in 1993 of punching out a senatorial aide in a drunken dust-up in Washington, D.C., and was ordered into alcohol treatment. Three years earlier, he got into a fender bender while driving his father's Mercedes in their home state of Maryland.