An up-and-coming fashion designer who dressed Lady Gaga and other stars was murdered in her Manhattan condominium with a deadly cocktail of fentanyl and other medications final year, cops and experiences explained Friday.
A neighbor spotted Kathryn “Katie” Gallagher’s keys dangling from the doorway of her apartment on Eldridge Street on the Decreased East Aspect and entered to look at on her — then found her lifeless human body encounter up on her mattress, a police resource mentioned.
The mysterious dying of Gallagher, 35, was labeled as a murder Friday immediately after the clinical examiner determined that she died from acute intoxication from the put together effects of fentanyl, ethanol and the designer opioid p-Fluorofentanyl.
The promising designer was the target of grand larceny in what detectives believe that could be connected to a pattern of at minimum 26 modern “drug-facilitated” robberies in areas like the East Village, the Decreased East Facet and the Bronx, police sources claimed.
Cops are also probing irrespective of whether Gallagher’s dying is connected to Kenwood Allen, 33, who was arrested in December and billed with murder in the overdose theft deaths of two clubgoers in the Decreased East Aspect, police sources explained.
Allen — who has not been billed in relationship to Gallagher’s death — is allegedly a member of a vicious gang that has frequently drugged inebriated revelers and robbed them. Law enforcement are also looking into whether or not two of his co-defendants are connected to Gallagher’s loss of life.
“They concentrate on their victims leaving bars, presenting medication in some cases, then either by way of drive or when the target passes out, they take out jewellery, revenue, high-conclusion watches and telephones from their victims,” NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig stated at the time of Allen’s arrest.
Gallagher was “a painter and internationally acknowledged manner designer” who opened her eponymous label in New York Town in 2010, in accordance to an obituary published by the Rhode Island University of Structure, Gallagher’s alma mater.
More than the last decade, her perform was highlighted in magazines these kinds of as Vogue, Glamour, and W, and her collections were worn by celebrities like Laverne Cox, Rita Ora, and Woman Gaga. Kourtney Kardashian and singer Rita Ora also dressed in her garments.
Just before her clothing line took off, she labored as a bartender at Flats Fix Taqueria & Tequila Bar on East 16th Street and Broadway in the East Village in 2016, a employee there informed The Article.
It was not apparent how the medicines obtained into her program or no matter whether anything at all was stolen from her condominium.
A memorial company for Gallagher was held in her home point out of Pennsylvania in August, and a celebration of daily life is scheduled for this Could.
Gallagher’s loved ones released a GoFundMe page to increase cash so the promising artist’s last collection can be done. They hope to current her function in the Major Apple this tumble.
Gallagher is survived by her parents, grandmother, and a few sisters, who were being “so proud of who she was and all she attained in her short but full and wonderful daily life,” according to her obituary.
“Fiercely impartial and sure of her vision, Gallagher followed her have path in life and in style,” a Vogue tribute to her read through.
Further reporting by Natalie O’Neill and Desheania Andrews