Being famous is a dangerous business.
The cause of Brittany Murphy’s death in 2009 is being questioned by her father who alleges she was poisoned, but she isn’t the only celebrity to have met a mysterious end. Even official rulings aren’t enough to dispel conspiracy theories surrounding some of Hollywood’s most untimely deaths.
Here’s our top-10 list of suspicious celebrity deaths:
Kurt Cobain
Cobain was found dead in 1994, with a shotgun pointing at his chin, by an electrician who had arrived to install a security system. He had been dead for days. The Nirvana front man’s death was ruled an apparent suicide, but some fans claim he had too much heroin in his system to manipulate the shotgun, and he was murdered.
Marilyn Monroe
The Hollywood star died mysteriously at the age of 36 from an overdose of sedatives that was deemed to be suicide. But theories remain that she was murdered as a result of alleged affairs with both US President John F Kennedy and his brother Robert – speculation fuelled by items being removed from her home after her death.
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman
In this case the celebrity was the one charged with the killing. Nicole Brown Simpson and her partner Goldman were Stabbed to death in 1994. Simpson’s ex-husband O J Simpson was arrested and tried for the murders after blood-stained gloves and fibres from Goldman’s clothes were found in Simpson’s home, and hair with similar qualities to his was found at the crime scene.
Simpson was acquitted on both counts of murder in 1995 and no other suspect has ever been identified. In 1997 a civil jury found him liable foe the deaths in a case brought by Nicole Simpson’s father. Simpson reignited debate about his culpability in the murders in 2007 with the release of his book “If I Did It”, in which he puts forward a hypothetical description of the murders.
Elizabeth Short
The 22-year-old aspiring actress was dubbed the Black Dahlia by the media after her severely mutilated body was discovered on a vacant lot in Los Angeles – severed at the waist and completely drained of blood. Her face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth toward her ears, and her severed lower half was positioned away from her torso. Short’s 1947 murder is one of the oldest unsolved murders in Los Angeles history, but the notoriety the case received means more than 50 men and women have confessed to the murder.
Bob Crane
The Hogan’s Heroes star was found bludgeoned to death in his Arizona apartment in 1978, seemingly by a camera tripod. A friend of Crane’s, John Henry Carpenter, was tried for the murder, but acquitted in 1994.
Michael Jackson
The King of Pop died on June 25, 2009, after suffering a cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles. His personal doctor, Conrad Murray, found Jackson in his room, not breathing, and administered CPR. On the eve of the singer’s 51st birthday, the Los Angeles County Coroner concluded his death was a homicide. Before his death, Jackson had been administered a variety of prescription drugs in his home, and Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011.
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Natalie Wood
In 1981, actress Natalie Wood was boating off Santa Catalina with husband Robert Wagner, and co-star Christopher Walken. Facts surrounding her death are murky, because no one admitted seeing how she entered the water, but she was found drowned not far from the boat the next day. Ruled an accidental drowning at the time, police reopened the case in 2011 after the ship’s captain admitted lying to police during the initial investigation, and said a fight between Wood and Wagner had occurred before her death.
Jimi Hendrix
The musician died in London in 1970 after chocking on his own vomit while intoxicated with sedatives, according to the coroner. Conflicting accounts of the night of Hendrix’s death from his companion stirred up conspiracies, and Scotland Yard opened an inquiry more than 20 years later, but it ended inconclusively.
Jim Morrison
Another member of the notional “27 Club”, The Doors singer was found dead in a Paris bathtub. No autopsy was conducted because of a lack of evidence of foul play, but his death was officially attributed to a heart attack, and unofficially to a drug overdose.
Brittany Murphy
The actres died aged 32 in 2009. Her death, ruled by the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office to be accidental was attributed to multiple-drug intoxication, pneumonia and iron-deficiency anaemia. But Murphy’s father pushed for further toxicology reports, which supposedly showed the presence of 10 heavy metals above the “high” level set by the World Health organisation, leading to suspicion the actress was poisoned. Despite the new lab report, the Los Angeles Country Coroner has announced there are no plans to reopen the investigation into her death. Murphy’s husband, Simon Monjack, died just five months after her, also of acute pneumonia and severe anaemia.
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