It’s been over a month since One Direction member Liam Payne fell to his death from the balcony of his third-floor hotel room in Bueno Aires, Argentina, and an investigation continues. Following raids to discover who might be held accountable for the tragedy, prosecutors are eyeing Payne’s friend Roger Nores, wanting to charge him with abandonment for leaving the pop star alone despite allegedly knowing the 1D singer was off the wagon. However, a judge has ruled they don't have the jurisdiction to do so.
A lot of information has come out regarding what happened at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel on October 16 leading up to Liam Payne’s death. After it was learned that hotel employees knew he might try to escape via the balcony, the question has turned to why he was alone in the first place. Roger Nores was traveling with the 31-year-old singer but staying in a different location, per prosecutors’ documents obtained by TMZ, after promising Payne’s dad in May that he’d take over his care.
The father had stressed to his son’s friend that Liam should be kept busy and never left alone. However, “abandonment” cases have to be handled by local prosecutors, a judge ruled, and those who drafted the document regarding Roger Nores are national prosecutors. They therefore have no jurisdiction to pursue such charges. The national prosecutors appealed the decision but it was rejected, and no charges have been filed by local prosecutors.
According to the prosecutors’ timeline of events, Liam Payne ordered four bottles of whiskey at 10 p.m. the night before his death and five more at 6:36 the next morning. He texted Roger Noles at 7 a.m. and again at 9:32 a.m. asking, “Can you get 6 grams?” which prosecutors presume meant the “pink cocaine” that was found in Payne’s system.
The friend allegedly arrived at the hotel and went to breakfast with Liam Payne, who reportedly was drinking whiskey. Afterward the One Direction singer is reported to have gone back to his room and was chaotically looking for a “powder,” according to a housekeeper. He then allegedly had sex with two sex workers, who he supposedly asked for cocaine, and he became angry when they asked for payment, reportedly punching the hotel television three times.
According to prosecutors, Roger Noles returned to the CasaSur hotel at 3:45 p.m. to pay the women but left again at 4:04 p.m. It was around that time that housekeepers reported hearing the singer breaking objects in his room, and hotel guests recall Liam Payne causing disturbances in the lobby that required him to be escorted back to the third floor. Noles texted him at 4:25 p.m. asking, “How are you?” but Payne did not respond. He died soon after.
Three people have since been charged in connection to Liam Payne’s death, accused of supplying the pop star with drugs. A funeral was held for him on November 20, where the other members of One Direction were in attendance, as well as Simon Cowell, who had said he was “truly devastated” by Payne’s passing in a tribute on social media.
To learn more about this tragic event, you can stream the ABC News documentary IMPACT x Nightline: One Direction: Liam Payne’s Final Days with a Hulu subscription.
