Sad news out of St. Louis, as a 27-year-old woman said to be the girlfriend of beer baron, August Busch IV, was found dead of a suspected overdose inside his mansion. The ex CEO of Anheuser-Busch, Busch is an heir to the $3 billion Budweiser brewing fortune. However, before becoming the face of the company in 2006, Busch was better known as a bit of a wild child, leading St. Louis police on a high-speed chase in his Mercedes before having his tires shot out by pursuing officers. (When they realized whom they had been chasing, they installed his spare tire.) He was later acquitted of assault.

Meanwhile, longtime Tucson residents better know Busch as the former University of Arizona student who may have got away with murder after crashing his Corvette after drinking at a bar.

Image via MSNBC

According to MSNBC, police in the upscale St. Louis suburb of Huntleigh, Missouri were called to August Busch IV’s estate on the afternoon of December 24, 2010 to check the status of an “unresponsive person” at the home. The victim, identified as Adrienne N. Martin, was deceased when paramedics and officers arrived and is suspected to have died of a drug overdose.

According to Busch’s lawyer, Art Margulis, Martin and Busch had been dating for at least a year, and there was “absolutely nothing suspicious” about Martin’s death. “It was a tragic death of a young woman,” he said.

An autopsy has been conducted, but it could be six weeks until the results are known. And speaking of long delays, police apparently announced the story in a faxed news release that did not say if the death was considered suspicious. Nor did they say why news of the death was not announced until four days later.

However, this sad tale gets even stranger when you consider that back in 1983, Busch, then a 20-year-old University of Arizona student, was involved in car crash that left his female passenger dead. Busch was found hours later at his home some four miles from the crash site, with a fractured skull and claiming he had amnesia. And despite Busch being seen at a bar drinking before the deadly crash of his black 1984 Corvette (similar to the one pictured at right), authorities declined to press criminal charges, citing a lack of evidence.

According to a 1984 article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, a seven-month investigation by Tucson authorities had ‘produced adequate circumstantial evidence’ that Busch had been driving the Corvette that had crashed, killing a companion, Michele C. Frederick, 22.

“But the county attorney declined to prosecute because Busch’s blood alcohol level at the estimated time of the accident had been below the legal level for intoxication in Arizona. Witnesses who saw Busch and Miss Frederick leave a bar in Tucson shortly before the accident said Busch had had some drinks there but did not appear to be under the influence of alcohol when he had left about 1 am.”

August Busch was seen drinking at this longtime Tucson watering hole right before his deadly crash

Later that day, authorities found Busch’s sportscar overturned on a winding creek road. Miss Frederick’s body was thrown clear of the vehicle.

Busch, who was discovered six hours later in a dazed and bloodied condition at his home, four miles from the scene, later underwent surgery for the skull fracture. He was tied to the crash through saliva, blood and hair samples, although only after repeated delays by the Busch family’s lawyers, who fought the taking of hair and fiber samples from young Busch. Furthermore, Pima County officials said the investigation had taken so long because of the ‘high profile’ of Busch and his family. “We wanted to leave no stone unturned before we made a final determination of this case, ” they wrote in a statement to the press back in 1984.

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