Brittany Murphy’s Death Case Might Be Reopened

Over six years after her death, Brittany Murphy’s death case might be reopened. The L.A. County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter confirmed this to Us Weekly after an E! News investigation raised new questions about her death. It’s not a guarantee and comes with some conditions.  According to Winter:

“We would have to have direct evidence. In all honesty, it would take something like a confession. Something connecting somebody with it.”

Which they don’t have. Murphy died at age 32 in 2009, from what was ruled as an accidental death due to a combination of pneumonia, anemia, and multiple-drug intoxication. In 2013, Murphy’s father had her hair tested in a lab which revealed heavy metals found in rat poison. Her father said:

“I have a feeling that there was a definite murder situation here. Yeah, it’s poison. Yes, yes, I know that.”

According to Winter, these tests differ highly from the coroner’s report and there is a far less sinister reason behind the presence of metals.

“One of the things that was found in the other private test was the fact that there were some heavy metals found in the test and those metals are attributed to people that dye their hair and if you dye your hair you’re going to have heavy metals there. It was not at the level that would warrant reopening the case because Brittany did dye her hair.”

Winter went on to say:

“If the police wanted to conduct an investigation or if somebody came to us and said, ‘This is the following circumstances, did you guys find this or this?’…then we would contact the law enforcement agency also and say, ‘The family or somebody came and said that somebody confessed to actually putting some sort of poison in her food.'”

As of now, there are currently no official plans to reopen the case.