Nov 18, 2025
3 min read
Debbie Heidman, Tyler Skaggs' mother, said she did not know if her son had disclosed his drug addiction to the Angels, but added that she had not been asked.
Santa Ana, Debbie Hetman, Debbie Hetman, mother of Debbie Anger, Los Angeles, one of the franchise's controversial wrongful-death civil lawsuits, alleging she failed to report her drug addiction but was unaware she was asking any questions about it.
If the team asked," Hetman replied, "He would tell the angels he was addicted to percocet during the 2013 season. He said his son came to him for help.The Angels sold skiggers before the 2014 season.
The Angels have long said they were unaware of Skaggs' drug problems, one of the defense's main arguments in the trial, which entered its sixth week Monday.The Angels say they are not responsible for Skaggs' death and that it was his reckless decisions to mix alcohol and opioids that led to his death after an accidental fentanyl overdose in a Texas hotel room in 2019.
On Monday, the two lead prosecutors in the case -- Heitman and Skaggs' widow, Carly Skaggs -- took the stand in emotional testimony.
Heitman explained how Skaggs approached her and Skaggs' stepfather after the 2013 season, when Skaggs was pitching to the Arizona Diamondbacks, and told them he was addicted to Percocet.Together with Skaggs, they saw a doctor with experience in addiction and a psychiatrist.
She explained that her son was taking the following drugs - which were part of his medical regimen and his mother insisted - to ensure he stayed clean.At this time, he had traded with the angels.Heitman believes that his son was able to be accepted by 2013 because he looked more like him than the "very depressed and lost" he saw "the season he saw after the 2013 season.
"As a parent, you want to make sure your child is on the right track," Hetman testified."And to get healthy and not fall back into that spending pattern."
Heitman said he talked to Dr. Neal L'Atrache, who performed Skaggs' Tommy John surgery in 2014, about his son's Percocet problem and they wanted to prescribe him different pain medications.He also told Skaggs' agents and had a follow-up conversation about it with his then-girlfriend Carly.
Carli Skaggs testified Monday that she did not inform her family or her future husband.Carli Skaggs, the lead in this case, denied drug possession or unlawful arrest.Only once in a month was there a problem with them.He said.
As part of the stirring cross-examination, the defense attorney asked Carly Skaggs if she thought her husband needed drug rehab help.She said no.Carly Skaggs also testified that she believed it was out of character for Skaggs to ask former communications officer Eric Kay for drugs after Kay left the rehab clinic in 2019.
Kay was convicted in federal court in 2022 of giving Skaggs the pill that killed him and faces 22 years in prison.Several players testified at trial that Kay gave them the pills.
Carli Skaggs tearfully testified about her relationship with Skaggs and how she found out he had died six years later.Angels general manager Billy Eppler called to deliver the news.
"I don't even know that I heard him, he said the words, he was actually saying, but that's what I know, and immediately I was called Debbie," Carly Skaggs said.
She described the call as "the worst phone call I've ever made." The family traveled to Texas, and Carly Skaggs described seeing her husband in the coroner's office.
"I didn't want to see him but I had to because I needed to know that it was real, that he was gone," Carli Shaggs said."When it was like it hurt, I wanted it. It was in a cold, clean room, and the love of my life, my best friend, was lying there on the beach of health, and I had only heard of him before."
"Even though I'm scared," she said, wanting to give him one last kiss.
Six years later, he said, he still wonders "is this real?"He described the difficulty entering into new relationships and seeing friends with children because it was "a reminder of what I don't have."
She said that in the final days before her father's death last year, Carly Skaggs held his hand as she listened to a deposition witness about her husband's death.
The trial, he said, "consumed my life."
