What was heath ledger taking when he died

AFP - Hollywood star Heath Ledger, found dead in his New York apartment two weeks ago, died of accidental intoxication brought on by his abuse of a cocktail of prescription drugs, officials said Wednesday.

Ledger, who scored critical acclaim for his performance as a repressed gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain" in , was taking a mixture of pain killers, sedatives and antidepressants used to treat anxiety and sleep problems. The cause of the year-old Australian's death had been shrouded in mystery, with an initial autopsy proving inconclusive and conflicting speculation that he was a drug user and suffering from pneumonia. He had been found naked and unresponsive in his Manhattan apartment, with police saying that prescription medications were found in the residence but that a rolled-up 20 dollar bill near the body had tested negative for drugs.

His family insisted throughout that he would not have taken his own life. Ledger told The New York Times in November, during the shooting of the latest Batman movie, "The Dark Knight," in which he portrays The Joker, that he often took Ambien, a prescription sleeping aid, to help his insomnia. My body was exhausted and my mind was still going," he said. He was reported to have said that taking one pill had no effect on him and that he'd take a second one to fall asleep, only to awake an hour later with his "mind still racing.

All of these drugs are designed to depress the central nervous system in various ways to reduce pain or induce sleep. Depress the CNS too much, and you die. Ledger also may have gotten the drugs online, or from various doctors. But there's no way in hell one doctor would prescribe all of these drugs at once, Balkrishnan said. In her first statement since Ledger died, Williams said, "Please respect our need to grieve privately.

My heart is broken. Williams, 27, and Ledger met while filming "Brokeback Mountain" in She played his wife in the movie. The couple dated, lived together in Brooklyn, N. Despite rumors about a wedding, the two split in September It's rumored that his hard partying led to their breakup. In an interview with The New York Times in November, Ledger revealed that he was taking the sleep medication Ambien to get rest, but to no avail. He had thrown himself into his role as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," the latest film in the Batman franchise, scheduled for release this summer.

My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.