Heath Ledger's official cause of death was accidental overdose

People.com reports that Heath Ledger's official cause of death was an accidental overdose of several prescription drugs.

Heath Ledger's death on Jan. 22 was due to an accidental mixture of prescription drugs, New York City's Chief Medical Examiner has concluded.

"Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Diazepam, Temazepam, Alprazolam, and Doxylamine," said an announcement released Wednesday morning by office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove.

"We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications," the two-paragraph statement said in its entirety.

Oxycodone is a painkiller, Hydrocodone is also known as Vicodin, Diazepam is commonly called Valium, Temazepam treats anxiety or sleeplessness, Alprazolam is known as Xanax, and Doxylamine is a sedating antihistamine often used as a sleep aid.

Dr. Michael Hunter, a prominent forensic pathologist not involved in the Ledger matter, tells PEOPLE that the combination of the powerful drugs most likely caused "poly-drug intoxication" which led to respiratory arrest. "His breathing probably got slower and slower until it stopped all together," he said.

Hunter also said it is highly unlikely a doctor would have allowed Ledger to take all the different types of drugs in his system (though another doctor, Vatsal Thakkar, a psychiatrist at NYU Medical Center, tells PEOPLE that it could be "sloppy prescribing"). Either way, "This is a dangerous mixture of drugs," said Hunter. "We are seeing more and more people dying of poly-drug intoxication from prescription drugs and it usually a combination of the narcotic-type drugs seen here."

Hunter said it's important to note that the Medical Examiner officially ruled the death an accident, which means they must have ruled out suicide. He also said they officially determined his death was caused by the "abuse" of prescription drugs, which is telling.

"When they use the term abuse it tells us that he used drugs to obtain an intoxicant effect and not for a therapeutic reason. They must have determined through their investigation that the drugs were not for therapeutic use."

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Heath Ledger dies at 28

From People.com:

Heath Ledger was found dead at his Manhattan residence, a police spokesman confirms to the Associated Press. He was 28.

Police say the death may be drug-related. The NYPD spokesman tells AP that Ledger had a massage appointment at his Soho apartment. When the housekeeper went to alert Ledger the masseuse was there, she found him at around 3:26 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 3:45 p.m.

Ledger was last spotted publicly in London on Saturday on the set of Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Photos show Ledger wearing a clown costume. Other pictures of Ledger out of costume show him with long brown hair and a dark goatee.

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Dead celebrities that still earn big $$$

Forbes has once again released its annual Top-Earning Dead Celebrities list. According to Forbes, Marilyn Monroe raked in a cool $8 million last year, earning her the ninth spot on the dead earners list. But where is it all coming from? Nearly a half-century after her death, the blonde bombshell is still cashing in on her image -- or rather the licensing of it. Forbes listed Albert Einstein as the number five earner with a whopping $20 million take. Well, it turns out licensing your name to the explosive world of educational baby videos can be quite lucrative. The "Baby Einstein" series of videos and toys generated $400 million in profit last year -- with $20 million going into the coffers of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which controls the Einstein estate.

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O.J. Simpson is a crazy s.o.b.

Only someone who has gone completely off the deep end would do something like this (well, you'd have to already be totally insane to commit double homicide, but you know what I mean). Check out the latest about O.J. from MSNBC:
O.J. Simpson is confessing. Hypothetically, that is.

The former football great, who was acquitted in criminal court 11 years ago of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, reportedly has been paid a whopping $3.5 million to write about the double murder that shocked and riveted the nation in 1994, according to a detailed report in the new National Enquirer.

But Simpson is not actually confessing to the murder — rather, he’s writing a “hypothetical” book — which the Enquirer reports is tentatively being called “If I Did It.”

The early part of the book tells how Simpson fell in love with Nicole and how the marriage collapsed, reports the tab. He goes on, according to the article, to describe in gruesome detail the killing of his ex-wife and Goldman; he stipulates that the murder scenes are “hypothetical.” But, notes the tab, the descriptions are “so detailed and so chillingly realistic” that readers are left with little doubt as to what really happened.

Simpson can never be retried for the murders because of double jeopardy laws, according to the Enquirer, which also claims that Simpson aims to keep any book money instead of paying it out in a civil suit judgment against him by spending it all quickly.

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Burial for Anna Nicole's son Daniel

Anna Nicole finally buried her son after his untimely death six weeks ago. People has the details:

Anna Nicole Smith buried her son, Daniel Wayne Smith, on Thursday in a private plot overlooking the waters of Lake Cunningham in New Providence, Bahamas. Howard K. Stern, Anna Nicole's partner, paid tribute to Daniel, with whom he'd been very close, according to a statement from the family spokesman. "Anna Nicole Smith laid her son to rest today," Stern said in the statement. "It was the most difficult day of her entire life.” Royal Bahamian Police Assistant Commissioner Reginald Ferguson told PEOPLE that the police have completed their investigation into Daniel's death and have turned over their file to the attorney general's office. Originally, an inquest into Daniel's death was slated for Oct. 23, but it remains uncertain if there will be one at all.

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an update on Anna Nicole's son Daniel

From Yahoo:
An American examiner hired by the family, Cyril Wecht, said 20-year-old Daniel Smith had methadone and two antidepressants in his system when he died Sept. 10 in his mother's hospital room in the Bahamas. Low levels of the three drugs interacted to cause an accidental death, Wecht said.

Daniel Smith, who reportedly was hospitalized for depression and back pain before he traveled to Nassau, had been prescribed the antidepressant Lexapro, Wecht said. He said he had not determined whether Smith had also been prescribed Zoloft, the other antidepressant found in his system.

The two drugs can be lethal when taken together or in sequence, according to Ann Blake Tracy, the Des Moines, Iowa-based director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness.

"The residue can stay there for some time, and if they're prescribed one after they've taken another, they can end up in trouble," she said.

Wecht said he did not know why Smith was taking methadone, a pain-reliever that is also used to ease heroin cravings for recovering addicts.

The combination of the three drugs, even in low doses, could easily have killed Smith, said Lisa Johnson, a pharmacist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

"The methadone will slow you down, but the other ones make your system speed up, so it's an odd combination," she said.

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Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin dies at 44.

"Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin was as fearless as he was entertaining. The Australian, who popularized the word "crikey",gained international fame as a wildlife expert on his popular "Animal Planet" series. Irwin was killed in a freak accident yesterday, while taping an underwater documentary off the Australian coast. He leaves behind an American wife, and two young children. As John Vause explains, Irwin's sudden death is causing shock and sadness in his home country.

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