NEW YORK — Ted Koppel’s son has died after a daylong drinking binge in New York City, the New York Post reports.
Andrew Koppel, 40, was declared dead around 1:30 a.m. Monday after authorities found his body at a rundown apartment in the Washington Heights neighborhood.
According to the Post, Koppel began drinking around noon at Smith’s Bar & Restaurant, where he befriended a stranger, Russell Wimberly, a 32-year-old waiter.
"He had a straw hat on, and I had one on, and he said, ‘Nice hat, man,’ " Wimberly told the newspaper. "We got to talking, and he started buying me drinks."
Wimberly said Koppel, who lived in Queens with his girlfriend and baby daughter, was drinking straight whiskey as they went from bar to bar.
"There was a lot of alcohol. He didn’t take anything else [drugs] around me, and neither of us ate all day," he said. "We talked about our kids … He said he had a kid and loved [her] a lot."
Wimberly brought Koppel to the apartment around 11 p.m. and put him to bed. A few hours later, Wimberly and a woman who lives at the apartment, Belinda Caban, noticed Koppel had urinated and defecated in the bed and didn’t appear to be breathing so they called 911.
The medical examiner has yet to determine a cause of death.
Koppel worked as an attorney for the city’s Housing Authority. He was the former ABC News anchor’s only son and third youngest of four children with wife, Grace Anne.
