Cocktail of heroin and alcohol caused the deaths of two former U.S. Navy SEALs on Captain Phillips' ship

Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44, found dead in same room on Maersk Alabama in the Seychelles on February 18

Kennedy, a married father from Louisiana, allegedly had a syringe in his arm



Local police said the pair partied with two prostitutes before they died

The men served in the elite Navy SEALs before working for private defense contractor

In 2009, the ship was targeted by Somali pirates in an attempted hijacking off the east coast of Africa



The 2013 film Captain Phillips is based on the incident

A cocktail of heroin and alcohol killed two former Navy SEALs found dead on the cargo ship made famous in the movie Captain Phillips.



Police said Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44, died from drug and alcohol overdoses on board the Maersk Alabama on February 18. A toxicology analysis found no poison in their blood.



Officers initially said the security guards, found side-by-side surrounded by syringes and drugs in a cabin, died from heart attacks caused by heroin overdoses.



At the time, local police said the men were seen partying with two women believed to be prostitutes the night before they were found dead. The ship was docked in the Seychelles, a group of tropical islands in Africa.



Official: Seychelles police said Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44 (left) and Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43 (right) were killed by a mix of alcohol and heroin. They were found dead on board the Maersk Alabama on February 18



Security guard: Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, worked for Virginia-based maritime security firm The Trident Group

Life of service: Mark Kennedy (left, and pictured with his wife Julia right) was a former Navy SEAL



Reynolds, from California, and Kennedy, from Louisiana, worked as armed guards for Trident Group, a Virginia-based maritime security services firm.

'It's bizarre. Of course, it's a shock. They're all great guys,' the company's president, Tom Rothrauff, told CNN.

Before working as security guards, the men belonged to the SEALs, an elite unit of the military's special operations forces who are sometimes called upon to combat piracy.

Their deaths stunned family and friends, with Kennedy's relatives telling MailOnline they refused to believe the highly-decorated member of the SEALs would take drugs.



Close friend Jeremy White, a former Navy reservist, said Kennedy had such chiseled features and was so clean cut that he called him 'Captain America.'

'I do not believe Mark took drugs,' White told MailOnline. 'That is not the Mark I knew. There is much more to this than is not being told right now.'

Work: Mark Kennedy was employed by Trident Group to work on the Maersk Alabama, which had been hijacked by pirates in 2009 and later dramatized on screen

Stash: Police say drugs were found in a cabin shared by Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44, aboard the Maersk Alabama

Kennedy's father Danny, 72, was so upset he could barely speak when approached by MailOnline at his remote home in the town of Baker, in East Baton Rouge County.

Friends who grew up with Kennedy and trained alongside him at a local Cross Fit gym ridiculed suggestions that he had become a heroin user or hung out with hookers.



They said he was devoted to his wife, Julia, and 10-year-old son Mason and his final hours alive are in stark contrast to his healthy, clean-living lifestyle.



Kennedy was known to not smoke and as a combat medic was all too aware of the dangers of drugs, having served in Afghanistan where heroin use and its consequences were all around him.

Kennedy and his colleague Reynolds worked as armed guards on the Maersk Alabama, a Norfolk, Va.-based container ship that provides feeder service to the east coast of Africa and employs security contractors to provide anti-piracy services.

The two former special forces soldiers had been assigned to protect the ship on its run from Salalah, Oman with a port of call at Port of Victoria in the Seychelles.

Rescued: Captain Richard Phillips, (right), master of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama who had been captured by pirates with United States Navy Commander Frank Castellano Hit movie: Tom Hanks starred as Captain Phillips in the 2013 movie which dramatized the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama in 2009 by Somalian pirates

Guards are now carried on almost all cargo ships sailing close to the African coast to thwart hijackers.

Three years ago the giant Maersk Alabama taken over by four pirates from Somalia.

The ship's Captain, Richard Phillips, was taken hostage by the gunmen and spent several days in a tense standoff that only ended when Navy SEALs snipers killed three of the hijackers by firing simultaneous shots into the lifeboat where Phillips was being held captive.



A fourth hijacker was taken into custody and is serving a life sentence in a US prison.

The 2009 incident was made into the film Captain Phillips starring Tom Hanks as the ship's captain.

It received six Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting actor for Barkhad Abdi as the lead hijacker.