Philip Seymour Hoffman turned his West Village apartment into a drug den. 
 
 Seventy glassine baggies of heroin packed for individual sale — at least 50 of them unopened — were discovered in the $10,000-a-month rental where the Oscar-winning actor was found dead Sunday with a needle stuck in his left arm, sources said. 
 
 Some of the envelopes had the words “Ace of Spades” written on them, and others were stamped with the name “Ace of Hearts.” Both are brands of heroin that are often cut with a powerful pain reliever called fentanyl, and have become a plague in Pennsylvania, where they were used in 22 overdose deaths. 
 
 The body of Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Oscar-winning actor found dead Sunday, is removed from his Bethune St. home. (James Keivom/New York Daily News) 
 
 Police said they haven’t seen heroin with the Ace of Hearts stamp in New York City since 2012. 
 
 Cops also removed from Hoffman’s Bethune St. apartment several bags brimming with about 20 hypodermic needles. 
 
 (JR/New York Daily News) 
 
 Hoffman’s remains were autopsied on Monday to determine the cause of death, and the heroin is being analyzed to try to determine whether it came from a particular batch currently being hawked on the street. Police, however, are pretty certain they know what killed the supremely talented but drug-addicted actor. 
 
 “We still think it’s going to be an overdose,” one NYPD source said. 
 
 Phillip Seymour Hoffman is seen nodding off on a plane from Atlanta to New York City last week, three days before his death. Hoffman was seen at an Atlanta bar drinking prior to his flight. (TMZ) 
 
 Hoffman, dressed in boxers and a T-shirt, was found dead at 11:30 a.m. Sunday in a bathroom of the fourth-floor apartment by a pal, screenwriter David Katz, and personal assistant Isabella Wing-Davey. Katz had gone to check up on Hoffman after the actor had failed that morning to pick up his three kids from the care of their mother, his estranged girlfriend, Mimi O’Donnell. 
 
 Not far from Hoffman’s stone-cold body authorities discovered a charred spoon that the 46-year-old appeared to have used to heat up his last high, sources said. The door was double-locked, and there was no indication that anyone other than Hoffman had been inside his pad, the sources added. 
 
 Once he landed in New York, Phillip Seymour Hoffman was reportedly quickly put on a waiting airport cart. (TMZ) 
 
 Now police are checking Hoffman’s cell phone records and computer, and checking for security video footage of his recent visitors, in an effort to identify his drug dealer. According to Hoffman’s phone records, at 8 p.m. Saturday he talked to O’Donnell, sources said. Then, at 9 p.m., he spoke to Katz. 
 
 “The direction of the investigation is going to depend, in large part, on the findings of the medical examiner and the findings of the lab tests on the drugs,” said Deputy Police Commissioner Stephen Davis, the NYPD’s top spokesman. 
 
 Philip Seymour Hoffman walks with his son, Cooper, in October 2011 in New York’s West Village. Hoffman also had two daughters: Willa and Tallulah. (James Devaney/FilmMagic) 
 
 Police will use a database to try to determine the origin of the heroin, a law enforcement source said. A source said investigators face a challenging task. 
 
 “No one’s got a trademark registered on Ace of Hearts” — meaning any dealer can use that name and that because it has that name doesn’t necessarily indicate it came from a batch by the same name found elsewhere, the source said. 
 
 Philip Seymour Hoffman was photographed in an Atlanta bar three days before he died. (TMZ.com) 
 
 Hoffman, who won the 2005 Best Actor Oscar for playing the title role in “Capote,” admitted last year to falling off the wagon after two decades of being drug-free and returning to the heroin habit that sent him to rehab. 
 
 Police found five different prescription drugs in the Bethune St. apartment, which was outfitted like a shooting gallery. One of the five was buprenorphine, which heroin addicts take to help kick the habit, sources said. 
 
 Philip Seymour Hoffman with girlfriend Mimi O'Donnell at the 80th Academy Awards in 2008. The couple had three children together, and O'Donnell reportedly booted the actor after he started using drugs again. (Andrew Ross/Corbis) 
 
 As investigators worked the case on Monday, Hoffman’s celebrity friends and supporters stopped by the West Village apartment on Jane St., where Hoffman had lived with O’Donnell, 46, and their three children — Cooper, 10, Tallulah 7, and Willa, 5 — until his relapse. O’Donnell reportedly booted the actor after he started using again. 
 
 Cate Blanchett, with whom Hoffman acted in the 1999 thriller “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” came bearing gifts for the three kids. She had tears in her eyes. 
 
 A makeshift memorial with bouquets of flowers, pictures and candles was placed on the front steps of the building where Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his apartment Sunday. (Alex Rud) 
 
 A short time later, the Rev. James Martin arrived. Martin is a Jesuit priest who met Hoffman in 2005 when the actor was directing “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.” 
 
 Actor Justin Theroux, a close friend of Hoffman’s, was also seen leaving O’Donnell’s apartment. O’Donnell did not speak to media gathered outside the residence. Neighbors described her as too distraught over Hoffman’s passing to make a public statement. 
 
 Cate Blanchett, who starred with Philip Seymour Hoffman in the 1999 thriller 'The Talented Mr. Ripley,' arrives at Mimi O'Donnell's Jane St. apartment Monday holding gifts. (Marcus Santos/New York Daily News) 
 
 “Just a lost, wonderful soul,” Barbara Meyers, 73, who lives next door, said of Hoffman. “A great guy. A doll. Always looked like a schlepper, baseball cap and hair this way and that, riding around on his bike.” 
 
 In Los Angeles, actor John Leguizamo told the Daily News he saw Hoffman a week ago at the swanky Chateau Marmont hotel, and they were “talking about theater and how tough it is.” 
 
 Justin Theroux, a close friend of Philip Seymour Hoffman, leaves Mimi O'Donnell's home on Monday. (Jeff Bachner for New York Daily News) 
 
 Leguizamo chuckled sadly when he recalled how Hoffman had quoted famed artist Pablo Picasso. “It’s like Picasso said, ‘I do the impossible ’cause everybody else does the possible,’ ” Hoffman said, according to Leguizamo. “I’m not saying I’m Picasso, but theater is like doing the impossible.” 
 
 Leguizamo, 49, said he and Hoffman “laughed, agreed and went our separate L.A. ways.” 
 
 Police and members of the media camp outside the apartment of actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the West Village on Monday. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images) 
 
 Mayor de Blasio called the tragic actor a “quintessential New Yorker, in the sense of just everything we love about this place, his creativity and his amazing ability to portray the human condition.” 
 
 “It’s absolutely tragic,” he said on Brian Lehrer’s radio show on WNYC. “What I can say about his life is even someone of that extraordinary achievement grapples with the demon of substance abuse.” 
 
 Philip Seymour Hoffman's personal assistant Isabella Wing-Davey (L) and screenwriter David Katz (R) found the actor dead in his apartment Sunday morning. (Jeff Bachner for New York Daily News, FILMMAGIC) 
 
 Hoffman was also a Tony Award-nominated stage actor who got rave reviews for his portrayal of Willy Loman in the 2012 revival of “Death of a Salesman.” 
 
 In his memory, Broadway’s theaters will dim the lights on their marquees for a minute at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday. 
 
 Philip Seymour Hoffman poses for a portrait during the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, where he debuted his first film as a director, 'Jack Goes Boating.' (Matt Carr/Getty Images) 
 
 In his brown Carhartt coat, ever-present baseball cap and rumpled slacks, Hoffman was a familiar and friendly presence in his neighborhood. 
 
 Neighbors said they saw the actor as recently as Saturday and he seemed just fine. “He looked like he had just come from California or Florida, he was looking really good,” said 74-year-old Avri Ohana, who lives down the block. 
 
 Hoffman had in fact been in the South — he was spotted in Atlanta last Thursday at a restaurant near the Hyatt hotel in downtown, according to TMZ.com. 
 
 Witnesses told the outlet Hoffman had made “multiple trips” to the bathroom and later appeared “drunk and disheveled” at the airport. 
 
 At the Bethune St. building on Monday, a dozen bouquets of flowers, including roses and orchids, mingled with single flowers on the front steps. There were also two pictures of Hoffman and a handful of candles that were lit until they were doused by a steady snowfall. 
 
 “He’s the only celebrity we ever cared about,” said 34-year-old Nathan Driver, who lives a couple of blocks away and walked over with wife Tara and their 2-year-old daughter, Scarlett, to pay their respects. 
 
 With Nancy Dillon, Caitlin Nolan, Erin Durkin, Chelsia Rose Marcius, Joe Dziemianowicz and Dale W. Eisinger 
 
 tmoore@nydailynews.com 
 
 Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! ||||| The entertainment community remained stunned Monday over the death of Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was found in his New York City apartment Sunday with a needle in his arm in what officials believed to be a heroin overdose. With that in mind, we’ve got all the latest developments in the gifted actor’s death, right here on RadarOnline.com. 
 
 Authorities Remove Body From Apartment 
 
 Officials removed the actor’s body from the Greenwich Village apartment he was found in at 7 p.m. ET Sunday, with a small crowd gathered on Bethune Street to watch the ongoing investigation. The somber crowd made little noise as officials placed a body bag containing the actor’s remains into a medical examiner’s van. As we previously reported, Hoffman’s friend and confidante, screenwriter David Bar Katz, found him in the bathroom when he did not show up for a visit with his kids earlier in the day. 
 
 Watch the video on RadarOnline.com 
 
 [radar_embed service=5min.com src=”http://pshared.5min.com/Scripts/PlayerSeed.js?sid=1126&width=570&height=351&playList=518109331&sequential=1&shuffle=0″] 
 
 Bad Batch? 
 
 Multiple reports Monday claimed that police were investigating if Hoffman was felled by a toxic strain of heroin making its’ rounds through the East Coast. Eight empty glassine bags with distinct emblems (Ace of Spades, Ace of Hearts), which officials are testing, were recovered from the death scene. Police said the bags (which also have been tied to heroin strains dubbed “Bud Ice,” “Income Tax” and “Theraflu”) — have been linked to a particularly deadly strain of heroin that’s been spiked with the powerful opiate fentanyl. The heroin-fentanyl combo has been tied to premature deaths in Pittsburgh, Maryland, and more than 20 overdoses in Rhode Island last month alone. A law enforcement source told Fox News that officials are investigating if the actor “had [overdosed on] the bad batch going around.” 
 
 Toxic Transaction 
 
 Police Monday were investigating a lead from a witness who said he saw Hoffman taking money out of an ATM Saturday around 8 p.m. in the West Village, then giving it to two men carrying messenger bags, Fox reported. The witness said that Hoffman, who was reportedly out with pals earlier in the night grabbing a low key dinner, was “very sweaty” and looked “like s*it” at the time he saw him. Cops are moving to acquire surveillance footage from the cash machine, which had a camera perched atop it. 
 
 Family Issues 
 
 Hoffman is survived by three children (son Cooper, 10; and daughters Tallulah, 7, and Willa, 5) with his girlfriend of 15 years, designer Mimi O’Donnell, but the two had parted ways as of late. One police source told Mail Online, “It is my understanding that Mr. Hoffman and his girlfriend were separated” at the time of his death Sunday. Hoffman, who completed a 10-day rehab stay last spring after more than two decades of sobriety, was reportedly slated to visit with his kids early Sunday, and his absence led his pal to make the grim discovery. Hoffman’s family said in a statement, “We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Phil and appreciate the outpouring of love and support we have received from everyone.” 
 
 Tragic Foreshadowing 
 
 In a 2006 chat with 60 minutes, the actor was candid about his past battles with substance abuse when discussing a rehab stint he’d underwent in his early 20s. “I did all that stuff,” Hoffman said of his predilections, adding that he entered treatment when he “got panicked for [his] life” after abusing. “It really was, it was just that.” Elsewhere in the exchange, Hoffman (who first got in TV in his mid-20s) said that he felt he would have succumbed to his drug demons earlier in his life had he made it big at a young age. “I always think, God, I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they’re beautiful and famous and rich — I’m like, ‘My God, I’d be dead’ — 19, beautiful, famous and rich, that would be it, you know … I think back at that time and think if I had the money, that kind of money.” 
 
 Watch the video on RadarOnline.com 
 
 
 
 Lost Treasure 
 
 Many of the tributes that poured in a news spread of the versatile actor’s death focused on his considerable talents. As well as his numerous runs on Broadway, he leaves behind a catalogue of films that showcased his brilliance in front of the camera. Among the performances many mourners cited included his Academy Award-winning turn in the titular role in 2005’s Capote; closeted gay porn cameraman Scotty in 1997’s Boogie Nights; enigmatic religious leader Lancaster Dodd in 2012’s The Master. The busy actor solidified his resume with memorable roles in films like 1992’s Scent of a Woman, and 1998’s The Big Lebowski, 2011’s Moneyball, and 2013’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. He is expected to posthumously appear in two Hunger Games sequels due for release the next two winters.
– We're still waiting for the results of Philip Seymour Hoffman's autopsy, which will be completed later today, but a search of his home makes the prevailing heroin overdose theory look seriously likely. Authorities found nearly 50 envelopes of what they think is heroin in the apartment, along with more than 20 used syringes in a plastic cup, and several bottles of prescription drugs, law enforcement sources tell CNN. There were also eight empty bags marked with the street names for various heroin varieties, including "Ace of Spades" and "Ace of Hearts." The NYPD is using those names to hunt for Hoffman's dealer, adds the New York Post, "An internal email went out to all supervisors asking if anyone has had any experience with those brand names of drugs," says a source. Ace of Spades is particularly notorious, the Daily Beast points out, explaining its long history. There have also been a bevy of recent media reports about a deadly tainted heroin variety containing fentanyl, usually sold as "Bud Ice," "Income Tax," or "Theraflu," leadng to speculation that Hoffman might have used it.