A lab report commissioned by Bertolotti showed the alarming presence of 10 potentially toxic heavy metals from a hair strand sample. It suggested that there was a possiblility Murphy didn’t die from natural causes but instead was poisoned.
L.A. county assistant chief coroner Ed Winter, who also participated in the documentary, previously told
E! News he was aware of the independent lab testing, but said the metals present were due to Murphy coloring her hair.
She wasn’t poisoned, and we stand by the cause of death,” he told the outlet. “She died from over-the-counter medicines, pneumonia and anemia.”
Wecht said the findings of heavy metals should have been further investigated, as they “certainly could lead to problems.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “They don’t cause pneumonia, but they can produce all kinds of problems… Where would you get 10 heavy metals and why would you use them? She did dye her hair, but I don’t know if that was ever followed up in a scientific fashion, to get the hair dyes she died and have them chemically analyzed to confirm that. That’s not hard to do. That’s the kind of study that should have been done. But to my knowledge, it was never done.”
Is it impossible to rule out murder? Wecht said that’s hard to say.
“Yes, I would say that it’s impossible,” he explained. “But impossible is a strong word that I don’t like to use without absolute certainty. The one thing that is absolute in science and in forensic science is cellular DNA. I can’t rule out the impossibility, but I stand by what I said. Take into consideration how someone would have gained access to 10 different heavy metals. How would you put them together? Why were 10 put together instead of one or two? How did they get there? And it takes time to build up heavy metals in hair. It doesn’t just happen with one dose.”
I can only say what I’ve said before -- it’s not possible to completely rule out things,” he continued. “But you have to deal with the questions - questions that I feel were never truly answered.”
