Entertainment

Murphy's Father Calls Death "Murder"

Even more details are emerging in the tragic case of actress Brittany Murphy's death back in 2009: According to ABC News, Murphy's father, Angelo Bertolotti, is theorizing that Brittany Murphy may have been murdered, based off of new toxicology reports which suggest she may have died as a result of being slowly poisoned.

"I have a feeling that there was a definite murder situation here," he reportedly told Good Morning America in a new interview. "It's poison, yes, I know that."

Murphy's death was officially ruled to be a result of pneumonia and anemia. Bertolotti reportedly ordered the new toxicology reports recently, after spending years attempting to secure hair, blood, and tissue samples for outside testing. As previously reported, the results showed "ten (10) heavy metals at levels above the [World Health Organization] high levels recommendation," which could potentially be a result of ingesting rodenticides and insecticides. Before her death, Murphy was reportedly suffering some of the symptoms of poisoning, including headaches, dizziness, tremors, sweating, disorientation — and her husband, Simon Monjack, died of the same official causes (pneumonia and anemia) only five months later.

As Slate points out, the high levels of heavy metals in Murphy's hair don't necessarily point to murder — hair dye can also lead to " elevated levels of manganese, iron, nickel, copper, cadmium, and antimony," which would explain the lab's findings:

Medical examiners typically do not perform hair tests for heavy metals unless there is other evidence to suggest poisoning. Mees’ lines, white bands that run crosswise on the fingernails and toenails, are a classic indicator of heavy metal poisoning. Since the Los Angeles County coroner’s office didn’t order heavy metals testing, it’s very unlikely they observed Mees’ lines or any other circumstantial evidence of poisoning.

Sharon Murphy, the actress' mother, has also questioned the results, not convinced of the source of the hair tested.

Murphy died at the age of 32 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA in Dec. 2009.