U.S. authorities are investigating the death of blues legend BB King after two of his daughters claimed he was poisoned.

    Karen Williams and Patty King said the musician was given “foreign substances to induce his premature death” by his business manager Laverne Toney.

    Lawyers for King’s estate said the claims are unfounded and disrespectful.

    Nevada’s Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg said it would investigate with the Las Vegas Police Department’s homicide division. “At this point, we don’t have evidence that these allegations of foul play will be substantiated,” Fudenberg said.

    “However, we are taking them very seriously and will be conducting a thorough investigation.

    “We are coordinating our investigative efforts with the homicide division of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. I expect the investigation will take a minimum of six to eight weeks.”

    However a statement from the Las Vegas Police Department said: “Until such time as the Clark County Coroner determines Mr. King’s death to be from other than natural causes, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is not moving forward with any investigation.”

    King died in his sleep at his Las Vegas home May 14, aged 89.

    At the time, his doctor and the coroner said he had died of a series of small strokes connected to his Type 2 diabetes.

    But the guitarist’s daughters alleged that King’s personal assistant Myron Johnson and Toney gave him medication to induce diabetic shock.

    The women added that “King was sequestered from all family members” in the week before his death, and that Toney and Johnson were the only people with him.

    Toney, who is the executor of King’s estate, shrugged off the daughters’ claims.

    “They’ve been making allegations all along. What’s new?” she told the Associated Press.

    A lawyer for King’s estate also dismissed the accusations as “ridiculous.”

    “I hope they have a factual basis that they can demonstrate for their defamatory and libellous allegations,” Brent Bryson said in a statement.

    Earlier this year, Patty King, Karen Williams and a third daughter, Rita Washington, went to court accusing Toney of neglect, but the case was dismissed because of a lack of evidence. (SD-Agencies)