The Medical Examiner Made Fiona Lowe’s Death a Public Record

Los Angeles County ruled on Oct. 1 that Fiona Hepler Lowe, 13, died by suicide. Emergency crews were called to the family home at 12:10 a.m. on Sept. 29, and she was pronounced dead at a hospital at 1:14 a.m.

Her parents, actor Chad Lowe, 58, and producer Kim Painter, 52, had already asked for prayers and privacy and pointed anyone in crisis to 988. The ruling put a manner of death on a file the family cannot pull back, and the case remains open.

Los Angeles County Rules the Manner of Death

The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner posted the update two days after Fiona died. The office said she died at a hospital, not at the house where crews first arrived, and that the manner was suicide. An earlier public note had left cause blank and said an examination was set. The Oct. 1 entry filled the manner and still left the file open.

Those public Medical Examiner case records are searchable once next of kin have been notified. That is how a death that began as a 12:10 a.m. call becomes a record strangers can open. The examiner’s file also indicated her body may be released to her parents.

THE HOURS AFTER MIDNIGHT

1. Sept. 29, 2026, 12:10 a.m.: Emergency crews respond to the family home.
2. Sept. 29, 2026, 1:14 a.m.: Fiona is pronounced dead at an area hospital.
3. Sept. 29, 2026: Chad Lowe and Kim Painter release a family statement and ask for privacy.
4. Sept. 30, 2026: Charles “Chuck” Lowe, her grandfather, posts a swimming photo with the line “Rest in peace sweet Fiona.”
5. Oct. 1, 2026: The medical examiner rules the manner of death a suicide. The case stays open.
6. Oct. 2, 2026: David Boreanaz, Lowe’s former Bones co-star, posts a family dinner photo that includes Fiona and writes that she may “dance in heaven with all the angels.”

No public file released a method, and none is repeated here. The only facts the county has put on the record are the time, the hospital, the manner, and the open status of the case.

The Lowes Asked for Prayers and Privacy

The family gave its statement on Sept. 29, before the examiner named a manner. They described a middle daughter who was smart, creative, and loved to dance, and they asked to be left alone while they buried her.

We are deeply heartbroken by the loss of our beloved Fiona. She was a loving young girl who was smart, creative, and loved to dance. She was adored by her sisters and she was deeply loved by her parents. In fact, she was the light of our lives. Her passing is devastating for our entire family and we ask for prayers and privacy at this time. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please reach out to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

The Lowe family, statement, Sept. 29, 2026

They named mental health without using the word suicide. The Oct. 1 ruling supplied that word for every headline that followed. Chuck Lowe, father to Chad and to actor Rob Lowe, 62, did not add to the public file. He posted one photo of Fiona in a pool and one sentence.

Oscar winner Marlee Matlin wrote, “My heart is broken into pieces. Fly high, Fiona Lowe. Love you Chad and Kim.” Harry Ufland, an actor who has called Chad his best friend for 50 years, wrote that his friend had “gone thru something unimaginable” and told people in pain to reach for a loved one. Boreanaz’s note on Oct. 2 was the first widely seen tribute after the ruling.

The first big posts still ran the death as Rob Lowe’s brother’s child. Replies under that framing told editors to say Chad’s daughter, or Rob’s niece, and to stop ranking the uncle first. A public suicide ruling on a 13-year-old also hands strangers a license to grade the parents, which is the cost of putting manner of death on a searchable county page.

Two Sisters and an Unnamed School Email

Fiona was the middle child of three. Mabel is 17. Nixie is 10. The family statement put the sisters in the first circle of the loss, ahead of the job titles and the famous uncle. They are the ones who still have to walk into class, and into whatever is left of a house the fire already took.

Parents at her school got an email from the principal on Sept. 29 saying a student had died. The note did not name Fiona. It offered condolences and said counselors were available for students and staff. That is how a school tries to hold a community without turning a child’s death into a flyer.

People who know the family have described her as quiet, kind, and well liked, with a lot of friends. Those lines are not a coroner’s finding. They are the scraps a campus uses when it cannot say more. The sisters now live with both the unnamed email and the named county file, which is a split no 17-year-old or 10-year-old asked for.

10 Years in a House Reduced to a Chimney

In January 2025 the Palisades fire took the home where the girls had grown up. The blaze started on Jan. 7, 2025, and burned more than 6,800 structures. California’s governor’s office has said 31 people died in the Palisades and Altadena communities in that firestorm. The Lowes evacuated with three cats and two fish. On Jan. 11, Lowe posted what was left, a brick fireplace and the outline of a lot, and wrote, “This is what remains of 10 years of building our lives.”

In February 2025 he took Mabel, Fiona, and Nixie back. Fiona was 12. The girls stood on a brick walk with their arms around each other and looked at debris. “Almost a month after we evacuated our girls finally got to go back to see what’s left of their home,” he wrote. “The way they’ve handled this whole devastating experience is nothing short of remarkable. I am in awe of their spirit and resilience. Helping them navigate these tough times is my sole purpose. Being their dad is my life’s greatest joy and privilege.”

Later he filmed an excavator clearing the lot and called it “a painful, but important step toward moving forward.” He wrote that life moves on because it must. In November 2025, on Fiona’s 13th birthday, he posted her in cowboy boots: “Celebrating Fiona officially becoming a teen today!! Keep dancing through life FiBear! Love you soooo much!!” She was born in November 2012. She would have turned 14 this November.

That is not a cause of death. It is the public weather this family was already standing in. Emanuel Maidenberg, a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, has said people who lost houses or belongings often feel the fire longest, and that recovery runs slower when the reminders stay in view.

This is a really traumatic event that takes time to recover from. So, these populations may experience slower recovery because the reminders are ever present, and their lives have changed.

Emanuel Maidenberg, clinical professor of psychiatry, UCLA Health

David Eisenman, a UCLA internist and public-health professor, said the fires disrupted children’s schooling and left families in insurance and rebuilding fights while they were still processing the night they left. His group is studying the aftermath and has said researchers would expect elevated depression and PTSD after evacuation. The UCLA Wildfire Impacted Communities Research Registry has enrolled about 4,440 Los Angeles residents from that period. It is a community study, not a file on Fiona.

What High School Girls Told the 2025 Survey

The county ruling lands in a year when U.S. high school girls still report more sadness and more suicide risk than boys, even after two years of improvement. The CDC’s 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, reviewed in September 2026, found that one in three high school students had persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year. That share was 33 percent, down from 40 percent in 2023, and still worse than the 30 percent recorded in 2015.

Fourteen percent of students said they had seriously considered suicide. Twelve percent had made a plan. Six percent had attempted suicide. Ninth graders were more likely than 12th graders to attempt suicide, 7 percent against 5 percent. Female students sat higher on every marker the survey tracks.

HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS AND BOYS IN 2025

The CDC tells schools to train staff to spot suicide-risk behavior, connect students to adults, and link them to care. A principal’s unnamed email and a counselor offer is that work in miniature. It is also all a campus can do when a medical examiner’s page has already named the student the email would not.

988 Is the Number They Put in Writing

The Lowes put 988 in the same statement as the request for privacy. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is free, confidential, and staffed 24 hours a day. People can call, text, or chat 988 for themselves or for someone they are worried about. That is the tool the family chose to name before the county named a manner of death.

Los Angeles County’s Office of Violence Prevention keeps a longer local list, including a youth crisis line and a teen-to-teen phone night. Those numbers do not replace a hospital, a therapist, or a school counselor. They are the first door the family pointed toward.

WHERE TO GET HELP

• 988 Lifeline: Call or text 988, or use chat, any hour, in English or Spanish.
• California Youth Crisis Line: Call or text 800-843-5200 for youth and families.
• Teen Line: Call 310-855-4673 from 6 to 10 p.m. Pacific, or text TEEN to 839863 from 6 to 9 p.m.
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741. Los Angeles County crisis lines for youth also include Didi Hirsch and the county ACCESS warm line at 800-854-7771.

Lowe won an Emmy in 1993 for Life Goes On and has talked about raising three daughters as the work that reset how he sees the world. In August 2024 he said having daughters was “an incredible privilege” and that he looked at the world from their perspective. Mabel and Nixie are the two who still occupy that sentence. The medical examiner’s file is still open. The number the family put next to Fiona’s name is 988.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a public medical examiner finding and a family’s statement. It is informational only and is not a diagnosis, a treatment plan, or mental health advice. It does not tell anyone how to judge a child’s death, a parent’s care, or a school’s response, and it should not be used in place of care from a licensed clinician. Readers who are worried about themselves or someone else should contact a qualified mental health professional or use 988 before acting on anything in this piece. Times, ages, and case status reflect the medical examiner file and the family’s statement as published on Oct. 1, 2026, and those details can change if the still-open case is updated.