Coronation Street actor was ‘getting on it like mad’ however died simply hours later

A talented actor tragically died after mixing ecstasy and ketamine during a dance festival in Costa Rica, an inquest heard.

Joseph Wandera, 27, from Salford, was just a week into his trip when he suffered a fatal seizure. The incident occurred at an apartment in the Tamarindo beach resort while he was at the BPM music festival in January 2022. His mother, Claire Beatson, expressed her shock at Rochdale Coroners’ Court today (Tuesday, September 18) upon learning about the substances her son had taken abroad.

Joseph had indulged in ‘Magic’, a class A form of ecstasy, and had confessed to his girlfriend that he’d taken a mysterious mix known as ‘Pink Stuff’. The day before he passed away, the inquest was told about a text he sent to his girlfriend in England, Alison Maloney, bragging about ‘getting on it like mad’ and mentioning the ‘pink stuff’.

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On the morning of his death, January 16, he messaged her saying: “Not gonna lie, I don’t know what was in the f***ing thing that I f***ing took. I can only type with my left hand and now I can’t see out of my left eye.”

He also mentioned vomiting and not having slept for two days. Joseph’s friend, Renay Zollner, who first met him in Marbella and enjoyed nights out with him in Manchester, also attended the Costa Rican festival and provided a statement to the court, reports the Manchester Evening News.

She remembered Joseph ‘looked tired’ with bags under his eyes during the trip to Central America, but seemed ‘otherwise healthy’. She mentioned that ‘the boys’ had their own villa while she lodged in a separate apartment. Ms Zollner revealed that Joseph had been taking MDMA known as ‘Magic’, although she was uncertain about the quantity. She pointed out that ‘everyone’ was buying Magic from local vendors.

The witness claimed she never saw Joseph drinking, but ‘a few days’ prior to his demise, he sampled a drug called ‘Pink Stuff’, which was a pink powder she observed him snort. Ms Zollner recounted that after a night out, at 3am on 16 January, she dozed off on her sofa only to be woken by a WhatsApp message from Joseph requesting a pick-up. She confessed to being ‘irritated’, yet she spent nearly an hour driving to the location he sent – a remote forest area by the coast. Upon arriving, she noticed the bags under his eyes, which she dismissed as ‘normal’ due to lack of sleep from continuous partying, boozing, and narcotics, as she explained.

“All of us were sleep deprived because of all the partying, drinking and drugs,” she admitted. Ms Zollner stated that when Joseph couldn’t give her the address of his villa, she returned with him to her flat where she denied his request to sleep on the sofa and instead instructed him to take a bed. She covered him with a blanket, she recounted.

Ms Zollner recalled that Joseph was ‘not hot or sweaty’ before she went to bed. She was awakened at 7.15am by Fidel, another boy who had stayed over, who informed her that Joseph was ‘fitting on the floor’. She instructed him to put Joseph in the recovery position. Five minutes later, a panicked Fidel called for her.

Upon finding Joseph on the floor, Ms Zollner could not find a pulse but noticed some breathing. The ambulance service was contacted and they were advised to ‘start CPR’, with Fidel performing chest compressions. When paramedics arrived, they declared ‘nothing more could be done’, according to Ms Zollner.

Coroner Catherine McKenna ruled the episode as misadventure, citing ‘ketamine and MDMA toxicity’ as the medical cause of death. She confirmed: “Joseph took these drugs of his own free will and I’m satisfied he did not intend this outcome.”

The coroner issued a stark warning about the dangers of recreational drugs following the death, saying: “Joseph was a talented, gregarious and joyful young man who had a promising career ahead of him and everything to live for.”

In 2018, Joseph graced the cobbles of Coronation Street, portraying a character eyeing up Eileen Grimshaw’s car.

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