Naya Rivera’s Death Certificate Reveals ‘Glee’ Star’s Final Moments

Glee star Naya Rivera tragically passed away after drowning earlier in July during a visit to California’s Lake Piru. Rivera’s body wasn’t discovered for five days. Still, many feared the worst after four-year-old son Josey was found on a rented boat sleeping alone.

The actress was buried on Thursday at Hollywood Hills Cemetery alongside other late famous names like Nipsey Hussle and Paul Walker. According to PEOPLE, while the Glee star was being laid to rest, her death certificate was telling the story about her final moments.

The outlet obtained the document from Ventura County officials and found it confirms Rivera’s cause of death while clearing other theories surrounding the passing. As PEOPLE reports, no other “significant conditions” contributed to the star’s passing and “drowning” was the only cause, with death coming in “minutes.”

As The Sun adds, Rivera seems to have perished only moments after getting her son back to the boat. Investigators would discover the body five days later in the northeastern portion of Lake Piru, a location that is 60 feet deep and an “empty canyon” of growth.

“We know he was wearing a life vest and she wasn’t. We know that she was able to, and she did assist him onto the boat. And then for some unknown reason, and I don’t think we will ever know, she was not able to get on the boat herself.” Captain Jeremy Paris of the Ventura Sheriff’s Office told Entertainment Tonight. “There’s no whirlpools there, there’s no what we call riptides like you see at the ocean… It’s really just this wind-driven kind of surface action that we see there.”

Investigators also confirmed that Rivera was not “reckless” with her decisions on the water that day, even admiring her reasons for attending the lake this year. “I think that’s a neat thing, a neat tradition she wanted to show her own son. I don’t think she’d been there in a while but as a child, she’d been there numerous times.”

Rivera’s body was discovered moments after her Glee castmates gathered on the nearby dock to pray for their missing co-star. It brought to a close an emotional search for the actress, leaving fans clawing for positive news amid the reality of the situation. Her ex Ryan Dorsey, and father to 4-year-old Josey, spoke out after the body was recovered in a tribute on Instagram.

“This is so unfair…there’s not enough words to express the hole left in everyone’s hearts,” Dorsey captioned his post. “I can’t believe this is life now. I don’t know if I’ll ever believe it. You were just here… We were just in the back swimming with Josey the day before.”

The 33-year-old actress has been laid to rest but she will still appear with Netflix on their cooking competition Sugar Rush.