Brittany Murphy Likely Died Due to Poisoning

Actress Brittany Murphy died on December 20, 2009 at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angele, California but recently, reports suggest that her death may have been caused by poisoning, according to USA Today.

A toxicology report showed that Murphy died with very high levels of metals in her body that is normally found in rat poison. In 2009, it was reported that she collapsed in her room days after experiencing flulike symptoms. During that time, the Los Angeles County Coroner's office concluded that the actress's death was purely accidental, but would have been preventable. Five months after the news, Murphy's husband, Simon Monjack was also found dead. Angelo Bertolotti, Murphy's biological father, reportedly filed a lawsuit against the Coroner's office to do more toxicology testing. The lawsuit was dismissed but Bertolotti sent Murphy's hair, blood and tissue samples for testing at the Carlson Company in Colorado, according to the Huffington Post. Bertolotti attested "his daughter's death was incorrectly determined to have been allegedly caused by pneumonia and anemia."

After Murphy's father filed a lawsuit, Julia Davis, a screenwriter who worked for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and was working on a biography of Brittany Murphy claimed that there may have been a possible poisoning. "It was highly disturbing to find out that they've neither been tested, nor even intended to test Brittany or Simon's hair for toxins, poisonous substances and heavy metals," she wrote in a press release. "These two were simply written off to natural causes, but we don't agree with this conclusion. The truth will eventually come out, we'll make sure of it."

On Monday, Bertolotti sent an email to the Huffington Post saying: "Ten heavy metals were found in abnormally high quantities. These types of heavy metals/toxic elements are commonly found in rat poison, pesticides, insecticides, etc. They may have been introduced by a third party with criminal intent." Chief Coroner Investigator Craig R. Harvey said: "We have not been presented any third party lab test results for analysis, so we are unable to comment on publicized reports on private lab tests."