What The Hell Happened: How Rudy Eugene Transformed Into the ‘Miami Zombie’ | Gawker

Certainly a lot has changed in Rudy Eugene’s life since his days as a North Miami Beach High School football player. He was a down-on-his-luck car washer who often found himself on the wrong side of the law. While former roommate Erica Smith says Eugene was “really sweet and giving” and “not an aggressive person,” his ex-wife and his mother might beg to differ.

Jenny Ductant, to whom Eugene was married for a year and a half prior to their 2007 divorce, told Local 10 she left him after he grew increasingly violent toward her. “I wouldn’t say he had mental problem, but he always felt like — people were against him type of attitude,” she told the news station.

Three years earlier, Eugene became the first person to be tasered by the North Miami Police Department. He gained this dubious honor while being arrested for beating up his mother and threatening to kill her. Detective Mike Pons noted that he was “very belligerent” and had to be tasered three times before he could be subdued. 

are bath salts to blame?

[…] authorities have theorized that the popular designer drug known as “bath salts” may have played a significant part.

A powdery substance commonly consisting of banned stimulants such as mephedrone and MDPV, the drug is got its name from a loophole that allowed it to be sold legally as “bath salts,” “plant food” and “insecticide” in convenience stores and elsewhere.

It is currently illegal in certain states — including Florida — but that status is tenuous at best, and no federal ban exists.

Among the symptoms caused by the drug that led officials to conclude it may be the culprit: The removal of clothing due to elevated body temperature, and “super strength” caused by the stimulants found in bath salts. “If you take the worst attributes of meth, coke, PCP, LSD and Ecstasy and put them together, that’s what we’re seeing sometimes,” Louisiana Poison Center director Mark Ryan told the New York Times.

It should be noted that police found no drugs at the scene, and Eugene’s autopsy reportedly revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Definitive toxicology results are expected within the coming weeks.

Until then, the mystery will linger. Police are working under the theory that Eugene was under some kind of drug-induced psychosis, but at this point, it’s just a theory. 

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