Brittany Murphy Died of Drug Overdose

Doubts are growing about the coroner's belief that Brittany Murphy died of natural causes.

"When you have a 32-year-old person dying suddenly, and especially a celebrity in Los Angeles, you can place your bet down that it's going prove to be a case of acute combined drug toxicity," Dr. Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist who has investigated other celebrity deaths, told CBS' "Early Show."

"And I bet you that this young lady tragically died in the same way that Michael Jackson did, and Anna Nicole Smith, and her son, Daniel Smith, and Heath Ledger-a combination of drugs that had been prescribed for her, prescribed for her husband, for her mother, in some fictitious names, probably by doctors who are very, very quick to make available anything that celebrities want, sometimes using knowingly fictitious names," Wecht added.

According the New York Post, paramedics who reached Murphy's house Sunday discovered a nightstand covered with pills.

"A check of the nightstands revealed large amounts of prescription medication in the decedent's name," the coroner's notes said, according to TMZ.com.

They added: "Also noted were numerous empty prescription medication bottles in the decedent's husband's name, the decedent's mother's name and unidentified third party names."Dr. Steve Nissen, chairman of the department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, told ABC News it's "exceedingly uncommon" for a woman Murphy's age to drop dead ofardiac arrest.

Source-ANI
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