Since the sudden death of actress Amanda Peterson, who is best known for her role in 1987’s Can’t Buy Me Love, PEOPLE confirmed that the ’80s star struggled after falling out of the spotlight and was arrested numerous times between 2000 and 2012.
According to the Weld County Sheriff’s Office in Greeley, Colo., she was arrested for a DUI and possessing narcotic equipment on May 3, 2012.
On March 10. 2010, Peterson was arrested for third-degree assault following a fight with another woman in Fort Collins, Colo., according to a police report. The officer wrote that Peterson “appeared intoxicated” and “was slurring her speech” and had been drinking earlier at a bar with her young daughter and then-boyfriend. Her boyfriend told police that Peterson was taking medication for bipolar disorder and ADD and was not supposed to drink.
The troubled starlet was also arrested in 2000, 2003 and 2005. Her mugshots show the actress almost unrecognizable, and in one picture, she has a black eye.
According to Sheriff’s Office records obtained by PEOPLE, she spent nearly three months in jail in 2005. She was arrested in September and released in December.
On July 5, 2015, she was found dead at the age of 43 in her Greeley, Colo., home. The Weld County Coroner’s report revealed Peterson died of an accidental morphine overdose, according to The Greeley Tribune.
Her mother, Sylvia Peterson, told Entertainment Tonight that her daughter struggled with drugs when she was younger but had been clean for a long time and that “this was not, in any way, a drug thing.”
Sylvia also spoke with PEOPLE and said she suspects her daughter’s sleep apnea may have contributed to her death.
She also shared some of her daughter’s final moments.
“She was in bed, and she’d had a wonderful day, and we were planning on a dinner the next day,” Sylvia said of her daughter, “so it was just a very, very big surprise.”
She also remembered her daughter, who made her big-screen debut in Annie, as someone who “was just so much fun.”
“She was so great,” she said. “She had a cute sense of humor and a love of history — just a very, very cute person.”
Fellow actors, including Can’t Buy Me Love costar Patrick Dempsey, paid tribute to her.
Dempsey wrote on Twitter, “In my memory, she will always be vibrant and young. Gone too soon. Sending my thoughts and prayers to Amanda’s family.”