A 32-year-old man killed by police after he fatally shot his estranged wife and seven others at a Plano cookout last fall was extremely drunk, according to an autopsy released this week.

Spencer Hight, shown in a photo posted to his Facebook page on June 27, 2017

Spencer Hight's blood alcohol content was 0.33 when he died, wrote Dr. William Rohr, the Collin County medical examiner. The legal threshold for a drunken driving arrest is 0.08.

Hight's rampage became one of the city's worst mass shootings in decades. People who knew him said he had a drinking problem.

He had no illegal substances in his system.

The autopsy report was completed in late September. At the time, Plano police already suspected that alcohol had played a role based on what they heard from witnesses who had interacted with Hight at a bar before the slayings, said Officer David Tilley, a department spokesman.

Blood alcohol content above 0.3 can be life-threatening to most drinkers, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. But drinkers can experience slurred speech, blackouts and "dangerously impaired" judgment at lower thresholds, experts say.

Spencer and Meredith Hight were going through a divorce when he stormed into their former home and used an AR-15 rifle to kill her and seven friends who had gathered for a football watch party. A police officer who responded to the scene fatally shot Spencer Hight.

Tilley said he didn't know whether the rifle was legally obtained, referring questions to federal officials who continue to investigate the mass shooting.

Spencer Hight's autopsy showed that a high alcohol concentration was also found in eyeball fluid, which indicates that the level of alcohol wasn't the result of fermentation that happens in the body after death.

His torso and left thigh were ripped by three rifle wounds.

A Collin County grand jury reviewed the police shooting and last month recommended no action against the officer who killed Spencer Hight.

In addition to 27-year-old Meredith Hight, the shooting claimed Rion Morgan, 31; Anthony "Tony" Cross, 33; Olivia Deffner, 24; James Dunlop, 29; Darryl William Hawkins, 22; Myah Bass, 28; and Caleb Edwards, 25.

Top row, from left: Meredith Hight, 27; Rion Morgan, 31; James Dunlop, 29; and Myah Bass, 28. Bottom row, from left: Caleb Edwards, 25; Olivia Deffner, 24; Darryl William Hawkins, 22; and Anthony "Tony" Cross, 33. Police say Spencer Hight burst into Meredith's cookout in Plano on Sept. 10, 2017, killing her and seven others.

Spencer and Meredith Hight had been married since 2011, but their relationship had crumbled by July 2017, when she filed for divorce after months of separation. She told her parents that her husband had hit her.

One of his friends said he had been bitter and depressed after the split with his wife.

The day of the shooting, Spencer Hight sat at a Plano bar down the street from his former home and showed employees a knife and a pistol, according to search warrants. An employee at Local Public House told police he escorted Hight to his car so he could put away his weapons.

That's when Hight asked the employee to turn away because he didn't want him to see what was in the trunk of his Dodge Avenger.

Two concerned employees tailed Hight after he left the bar and saw him outside his wife's house. A bartender called 911, but when police arrived, Hight had already squeezed the trigger.