Tuesday, on what would be his 58th birthday, is "Prince Day" in Minnesota, a day when his fellow Minnesotans are still processing the news that the famously healthy-living superstar died April 21 of an accidental overdose of the painkiller fentanyl.
But that one answer, released last week by the medical examiner for Carver County, Minn., after leaks, led to more questions that may never be answered publicly. That's because full autopsy reports are not public under Minnesota law, and generally remain private for at least 30 years.
Many of the questions that his friends and fans most want to know — such as, was Prince a secret drug addict? Did Prince have an underlying medical condition? — may not be conclusively answered because the full details of what the medical examiner found in the autopsy and toxicology tests conducted on his body will not be open for public review.
Contrast that to what was released in California after the high-profile deaths of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Robin Williams.
The autopsy of Jackson, who died in June 2009 of "acute propofol intoxication” in combination with sedatives, amounted to more than 50 pages, which were published by the Los Angeles Times, among others.
The autopsy findings about Williams, who died in August 2014 as a result of a suicide by hanging, also took up multiple pages and contained information on Williams' history of depression and addiction, plus a recent diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and the possibility he also suffered from Lewy body dementia, a newly recognized disorder similar to Parkinson's.
The local sheriff's description at a press conference of what was found in the investigation of Williams' death was so detailed that many people considered it an invasion of the Williams' family's privacy, even though the information release was compelled by the California Public Records Act.
There is a police investigation into the circumstances of Prince's death still on-going, thought it is largely under wraps for now. There is no guarantee that it will culminate in criminal charges in open court.
Even when the Carver County Sheriff's Office and Drug Enforcement Agency investigation of Prince's death is concluded, all that anyone, other than his doctor or his next-of-kin, will be able to read about the autopsy is the one-page summary of the cause-of-death and a few terse facts, such as his weight and clothing, released by the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office in a tweet on June 2.
"That wasn't an 'autopsy report,' that was a press release," says forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, who has investigated several high-profile deaths and appears frequently on TV to comment on cases.
And that's the way it goes in Minnesota, says Martha Weaver, spokeswoman for the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office, which handles autopsies for several counties in Minnesota. Last week's Prince cause-of-death notice is all her office is going to release, she says.
"Under Minnesota law, all other medical examiner data is considered private or nonpublic data," according to Midwest's brief statement last week. "The office is unable to make any further comments about its death investigation of Prince (Rogers) Nelson."
The Prince case underscores the distinct differences among the states about what is and is not public about autopsies, regardless of the identity of the decedent. In states such as Minnesota, autopsy reports go only to the families and doctors (or to police in cases of criminal investigations), so in effect taxpayer dollars are paying to produce largely private reports. And conducting autopsies and death investigations can be costly.
So Gov. Mark Dayton can declare Tuesday to be "Prince Day," but neither he nor anyone else in state government can release the full autopsy report. So it's possible we will never know the answer to such questions as:
What kind of fentanyl was found in Prince's body and how did he obtain the painkiller said to be way more powerful than heroin or morphine? Was there anything else found in his body in addition to fentanyl? Was Prince a long-time user of fentanyl or any other such drug? Were there any underlying medical conditions that contributed to his death?
"You can’t tell (from the toxicology) if it's prescription fentanyl or street fentanyl, although if it's pure, (the report) would just say fentanyl, but that's why we (review) medical records," says Dr. James Caruso, chief medical examiner for Denver, in a state where autopsy reports are public records.
"If there were any other meds on board to combine with fentanyl to cause death, typically that would be listed and it would say 'died of combined drug intoxication,' " Caruso says. Moreover, autopsy reports in Colorado contain data, if they exist, on "any significant medical problems, such as in the heart, lungs or major injuries" found in the body.
After Houston was found dead in a bathtub in a Beverly Hills hotel in 2012, the Los Angeles medical examiner reported the autopsy findings that she drowned after she fell unconscious when her heart stopped, and her heart stopped because it was damaged by her long-term abuse of cocaine.
In Minnesota, however, only Prince's treating doctor and next-of-kin can read the full autopsy report, says Dr. Andrew Baker, chief medical examiner for Hennepin County, which covers nearby Minneapolis. He says the family can choose to release the report to the public.
But the full list of Prince's next-of-kin is still to be determined by the probate court overseeing distribution of his estate. His one full sister, Tyka Nelson, up to now has declined to speak publicly about anything to do with her brother's death.
The only other way to get around the state law is if someone, such as media organizations, petitions a local district judge in Carver County to release it, says Baker.
"It would be up to the judge to decide whether the public right to know outweighs the privacy right," Baker says.
He points to a case from last year in Minneapolis, involving the shooting death of a young black man by police. When the local district attorney declined to bring charges against two cops, he got a court order to allow the release of the autopsy report to help explain his decision, Baker said.
"Usually the courts don’t overrule the privacy of the family, in my experience," Baden says.
Prince was well-known for his preference for privacy; he of all people would not be sorry if the grim details of his autopsy report remained private. But non-transparency could lead people to jump to hasty assumptions, such as one that concludes Prince was just another celebrity addict who was messed up on drugs.
"We cannot assume that addiction preceded death," says Dr. Dave Fowler, Maryland's chief medical examiner and current president of the National Association of Medical Examiners.
It may be possible to tell, from needle marks or scars on the body, that an individual has been using drugs, he says. "That begs the question of long-term substance abuse of some sort but it does not tell you what substance or how often or how long."
There are other possible scenarios of what happened to Prince, according to Baden: It might be he wasn't a fentanyl addict and the fentanyl that killed him could have been his first and only dose. Or he might have accidentally taken two or more different prescribed painkillers at the same time and died from that combination.
Or he could have been using opioids to cope with pain from years of vigorous stage performances or a hip replacement in 2010, built up a tolerance and then quit. When the physical pain and the pain from withdrawal hit, he might have returned to the high dose he was taking before quitting, not realizing his body could no longer tolerate it.
"You can't tell (from what's been released thus far) whether he had been getting fentanyl for a long time and took too much, whether he used for the first time, or he had been using it, was off for a while and lost his tolerance and then took too much," says Baden.
