Stand-up comedian Fuquan Johnson was among three people who died of a suspected overdose at a Los Angeles party, authorities said Monday.
Three people were declared dead at the scene in the Venice neighborhood early Saturday and a fourth was taken to a hospital in critical condition, LAPD Officer Mike Lopez said.
The dead were Johnson, 43, of Los Angeles; Enrico Colangeli, 48, of Medford, Massachusetts; and Natalie Williamson, 33, of Los Angeles, the L.A. County Coroner’s Office said.
A preliminary investigation found that the three died from an overdose, Lopez said. The coroner will determine and release the official cause of death after autopsies are performed.
TMZ reported that the people found dead had taken cocaine laced with fentanyl.
Authorities would not identify the person hospitalized. However, TMZ reported that comedian Kate Quigley was hospitalized and that the party where Fuqua had been on the night he died was next door to her residence.
Quigley regularly performs stand-up at venues around L.A. and has appeared in shows such as “The Office” and “Star Trek: Hidden Frontier.”
Johnson had been a popular regular for years at Southern California comedy clubs and wrote for the online show “Comedy Parlour Live: Quarantine Edition.”
Fellow comedians were paying tribute to him on social media as word spread of his death.
“Your energy would light up a room,” Damien Dante Wayans said on Instagram. “Everybody loved Fu!”
Several media outlets reported that Colangeli was also a stand-up comic.
ArLuther Lee of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributed to this report.
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