Exclusive
Ed Winter
Coroner for Stars Dead at 73
3/19/2023 7:00 AM PT
Ed WinterThe LA County Coroner who handled the deaths/investigations of some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities has died … TMZ has learned.
Law enforcement sources tell TMZ … Winter died at his home in the LA area on Friday of natural causes.
Winter was right there in front of the cameras in cases that, among other things, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Brittany Murphy, Paul Walker, Tom Petty and Corey Haim.
Perhaps the most notable case involved Michael Jackson’s death. Winter had immediate concern when he saw a shocking number of injection points in Jackson’s body. He was at the UCLA Medical Center where Jackson was taken, and immediately after he was pronounced dead, he noticed that Dr. Conrad Murray had left the facility. Winter said, “He escaped.” Murray would have been the one to sign Jackson’s death certificate, but Winter ended up doing it.
Winter later said Jackson had enough Propofol in him “to take down a rhinoceros or an elephant.”
But Winter knew there was more to the story and set his sights on that too Dr. Arnold Klein, Jackson’s dermatologist who fueled him with massive doses of Demerol almost daily. He tried to get Klein’s medical records and eventually discovered that Jackson had 19 aliases to score drugs, and Klein was one of the main agents.
Whitney Houston’s death just before Clive Davis2012’s pre-Grammy party was also a defining moment in his career. Winter had become such a fixture on TV, he was very recognizable himself. After Whitney’s body was discovered, her family gathered near her hotel room. Someone introduced a member of the family to Winter, and the woman said, “I know who Ed Winter is.” The woman was Dionne Warwick.
On Winter’s first day on the job, he was assigned a notorious celebrity case – the death of Lana Clarksonin the hands of the music icon Phil Spectorwho was convicted to murder her.
Paul Walker is terrible death was another high-profile case Winter handled. He went on TV to explain what happened in the car crash … “He died instantly,” Winter told reporters, despite reports that the actor screamed for help.
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