Eugene Thomas King Jr., the man convicted of holding a gun to celebrity chef Paula Deen's head during a 1987 bank robbery, has died in Brooklyn. Authorities responded to a 911 call and pronounced him dead at the scene on Thursday. The cause of death remains under investigation by New York City's medical examiner.
Eugene Thomas King Jr. was discovered deceased in his Brooklyn apartment on Thursday, according to family sources and New York Police Department reports. Officers arrived shortly after 5 p.m. following a 911 call and found King unresponsive. Emergency medical services declared him dead on site, with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner now examining the circumstances of his death.
King gained notoriety in 1987 for an armed bank robbery in which he pressed a gun to the temple of Paula Deen, then a bank teller. Deen later recounted the incident as traumatic, and King was convicted for the crime. The event resurfaced publicly in 2013 amid controversy over Deen's use of racial language while describing the robbery. In an interview with Inside Edition that year, King issued an apology, stating he regretted the fear he inflicted on Deen and acknowledging the ordeal she endured.
Following his conviction, King stayed largely out of the public eye for decades. No further details on his life after the apology have emerged in recent reports. The NYPD, FDNY, and medical examiner's office have not released additional information as the investigation continues.