BUENOS AIRES – The father of former One Direction star Liam Payne arrived in Buenos Aires on Friday to arrange for the return of his son's body to England two days after the famous boy band singer fell to his death from a hotel balcony.
After landing at the Buenos Aires International Airport in the early morning hours, Geoff Payne was photographed emerging in a blue suit from a downtown hotel accompanied by British consular officials. He was hustled by security officers into a sleek van with black-tinted windows.
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Payne visited the Buenos Aires morgue to identify his son's body before heading to the local prosecutor's office, which is investigating the case as a matter of protocol, to organize the repatriation of his son's remains, Argentine authorities said. He later stopped at the Casa Sur Hotel where Payne died to collect his son's belongings, where throngs of distraught Argentines had gathered for the third straight day to pay their respects.
A chain of young fans with linked arms maintained effective crowd control as Payne squeezed past the flowers, photos and hand-written cards piled outside the hotel in tribute to his son. He paused at the makeshift memorial, leaning down to pick up a photo of Liam before thanking everyone and disappearing into the hotel.
“I felt sick to my stomach because I couldn’t say goodbye to him,” said Mara Dorf, one of the fans at the scene.
It's the first time that any of Payne's family members have been seen publicly since the star's sudden death, which set off a global outpouring of grief and emotion from major pop industry figures and diehard One Direction fans. The shock hit particularly hard at home, with his family saying in a statement hours after his death that they “are heartbroken.”
“Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul,” it said. “We are supporting each other the best we can as a family and ask for privacy and space at this awful time.”
In media interviews over the years, Payne had expressed gratitude and affection for his auto mechanic father and nurse mother, describing them as hard-working and supportive. Both parents made cameos in “One Direction: This Is Us,” the 2013 concert documentary about the popular boy band.
“When I see him on stage I absolutely burst with pride, but we do miss him so much,” Payne's mother, Karen, said at one point in the film.
The 31-year-old singer's final hours at the Casa Sur Hotel in Palermo, a trendy neighborhood of Buenos Aires, remain murky as Argentine prosecutors say he appeared to have excessively consumed drugs and alcohol. The prosecution cited investigators who found Payne's hotel room a mess with what appeared to be narcotics and alcohol strewn about broken objects and furniture.
It remains unclear whether Payne intentionally jumped or accidentally fell from the third floor. The autopsy performed a few hours after his death showed he died from the plunge, which caused “multiple trauma” and “internal and external bleeding” in the skull, chest and abdomen and limbs. The results of toxicology reports are pending.
Investigators said that there were no signs of anyone else being involved in his death, citing a lack of defensive wounds on Payne's body that also indicates he did not try to protect himself from the fall. The prosecutor's report said Payne could have fallen into a state of semi-consciousness or unconsciousness.
In the media frenzy over the case, the gossip and celebrity news site TMZ had drawn particular backlash for publishing a cropped image that purported to show Payne’s body, with his identifying tattoos, sprawled on a wooden deck after his fall.
The site later pulled the image under a torrent of criticism. But the fallout continued on Friday when the Girls Aloud singer Cheryl — Payne's former girlfriend and the mother of his son, Bear — posted a powerful statement on Instagram in implicit response.
“What is troubling my spirit most is that one day Bear will have access to the abhorrent reports and media exploitation we have seen in the past two days,” she wrote. “Please give Liam the little dignity he has left in the wake of his death to rest in some peace at last.”
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Associated Press journalist Christian Kovadloff in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.