Tragic news out of Africa, where reports suggest an Amazing Race producer is dead and his assistant left in a coma after being poisoned by a local gang.
The U.K.’s The Daily Mail reports Jeff Rice was found dead in his Ugandan hotel room hours after he and a staffer refused to hand over their belongings to “thugs,” and that the group may have poisoned them.
“They were not attacked but (the evidence) points towards being poisoned,” Rice’s wife, Sally Blackman, told FoxNews.com.
“His production assistant was also discovered in a coma and has been hospitalized in Uganda. She has not shown any improvement as yet.” She added that local police are investigating the incident.
Uganda’s Daily Monitor had another angle to the story, suggesting Rice and assistant Catherine Fuller were the victims of a cocaine overdose and not a gang hit.
“Results from the analytical laboratory indicate that there was an overdose of cocaine. There was too much concentration in the stomach,” police spokesman Asuman Mugenyi told the Daily Monitor.
Rice and his assistant work as part of a team who travel the world for The Amazing Race, creating challenges in countries and cities the teams visit in their quest to win $1 million.
The duo were not working at the time of the incident, but had been involved in Season 20 of the CBS reality series, which kicked off this past Sunday with teams jetting to Santa Barbara, Argentina.
Rice, a father of two, was originally from the U.S. and worked in Los Angeles for five years before moving to South Africa.
He and Blackman founded SB Productions in 1999, which — according to the company’s website — produces and facilitates films, ads, documentaries and television shows. Rice’s past work includes gigs on Whale Wars, Dual Survival, Raw Nature and Timewatch.
The Amazing Race airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on CTV/CBS.
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