With Whitney Houston’s final moments revealed through release of the L.A. County coroner’s final autopsy report Wednesday, the Beverly Hills Police Department appears ready to close the case of the singer's sudden death. But Dr. Drew Pinsky has a lot of unanswered questions.
Houston, 48, was found dead in her bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Feb. 11. The cause was ruled to be an accidental drowning, and the result of cocaine ingestion and a heart condition.
Nearly six hours after the singer was pronounced dead, police measured the temperature of the water in the tub at 93 degrees Fahrenheit. No other specifics were mentioned regarding this circumstance, but it was a point Pinsky was quick to address on his television show, “Dr. Drew on HLN,” Wednesday night.
“How is that even possible? Is it like a self-heating bathtub?” Pinsky asked. He later added, “I don’t think they should close [the case] as this still leaves open the possibility of foul play.”
He went on to provide his own theory on Houston’s death.
“This theory that she had some sort of heart problem, I take issue with that,” said Pinsky. “She had mild – not even mild – minimal heart disease. Sixty percent coronary stenosis is something that no doctor would do anything with, because it is harmless.”
He calls the suggestion that heart disease contributed to Houston’s death “a pure guess.” Pinsky says the fact that the singer was found upside-down in her bathtub combined with low levels of Xanax in her system, as compared to high levels of cocaine, indicates the singer suffered a seizure provoked by chemical imbalance.
“Here’s a way to induce a seizure: not taking Xanax after having been on it for a period of time, the blood level goes low, (chance of a) seizure goes up," Pinsky said.
TMZ spoke to Pat Houston, Whitney’s sister-in-law, on Thursday morning, asking whether she now believed there may be truth to the insinuation that foul play was involved in the singer’s death.
“I do not,” said Pat. “It’s over with.”
Speaking to the L.A. Times following the release of the 42-page report, Lt. Mark Rosen, a police spokesman, said the investigation had been on hold while police awaited completed autopsy findings, and accordingly, the department would examine any new details before offering a conclusion. He did not provide a timetable for the proceedings.
"We can't finalize the case until we see what's in the report," the detective told the paper. "We have to review the document and we will take the appropriate course of action based on the coroner's findings."
The report said the singer was last seen by her personal assistant, who returned from Neiman Marcus to find the singer unresponsive in the bathtub. She’d been submerged for nearly an hour. Signs of cocaine and drug paraphernalia were found in the hotel room along with an assortment of prescription medications, and an open bottle of champagne.
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