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(Reuters) - Coroners conducted an autopsy on the body of conservative activist Andrew Breitbart on Friday but deferred a formal finding on the cause of his death until toxicology and lab tests are completed, officials said. Los Angeles County Coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey said toxicology and microscopic tissue studies were ordered because of Breitbart's death at the relatively young age of 43. They will take four to six weeks to complete, he said. "It's standard procedure," Harvey said. "We have a very young man who died suddenly and unexpectedly, so we want to make sure we cover all the bases."

The Los Angeles County coroner's office will review the death of conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who collapsed and died Thursday while taking a nighttime walk near his Westwood home. Given his young age -- he was 43 -- and the unexpected manner in which he died, authorities will conduct an autopsy to help determine a specific cause of death. Breitbart's father-in-law, actor Orson Bean, said in an interview with The Times that Breitbart was found collapsed near his home about 12:30 a.m. Paramedics took him to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, but doctors were unable to revive him. "We're devastated....

NEW YORK -- A Brooklyn teenager is facing two-years in prison for killing her brother's pet hamster. Monique Smith, 19, is charged with one felony count of aggravated cruelty to animals for allegedly killing the 4-ounce hamster during a family dispute last June. Witnesses say the girl grabbed the hamster, choked it and threw it outside the house. Authorities say the teenager suspected her brother of killing her own hamster earlier in the day. "Sadly, very often, pets find themselves in the middle of these situations," said ASPCA Assist. Dir., Joe Pentangelo. "A family will have a disagreement and unfortunately...

The U.K.'s Discovery Channel has reportedly pulled its upcoming documentary Michael Jackson's Autopsy: What Really Killed Michael Jackson. The move comes after complaints from the singer's estate and a public outcry from fans. According to a new report from nymag.com, the network yanked the special out of respect for the trial of Jackson's physician Dr. Conrad Murray. "Given the commencement of legal proceedings beginning next week, and at the request of Jackson's estate, the broadcast of the medical documentary has been postponed indefinitely," network reps said in an official statement. Earlier this month, reps from Jackson's estate submitted a heated...

BISBEE — A rancher who was killed by a suspected illegal immigrant at his 35,000-acre ranch northeast of Douglas earlier this year died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to a recently released autopsy report. On March 27, Robert Krentz Jr., 58, was checking the ranch at about 10:30 a.m. He notified his family he encountered a southbound illegal immigrant and had called the U.S. Border Patrol, according to the report. He was supposed to meet a family member at a watering tank at 12:30 p.m. When he did not show up, the family started a search and then called Search...

Abortion centers are not nice places. How many more horror stories need to be uncovered before America wakes up to this harsh truth? Philadelphia and federal authorities who raided a doctor’s office after allegations a woman died during an abortion made a shocking discovery: more than two dozen frozen fetuses. For the second time in four days, Philadelphia Police, along with State Licensing officials and DEA agents, searched the West Philadelphia office of Dr. Kermit Gosnell on Monday. Sources tell Eyewitness News that the search came after a patient reportedly died during an abortion on November 20. Sources say the...

Renowned medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden is a familiar face around the cable news neighborhood. He's been called upon by countless news shows to give his opinion on whatever murder case they may be covering. Well today, Baden dropped a bombshell as he testified at a hearing into the 2004 death of Kathleen Savio, the third wife of Drew Peterson. Baden said a producer for "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" helped him with the autopsy on Savio by taking photos and moving the body. Savio's body had been exhumed for examination after Peterson was implicated in the disappearance...

Police: Student Is Suspect In Yale Killing Victim believed to be graduate student who was due to be married Sunday NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Police have identified a suspect in the killing of a person whose body was found stuffed behind a wall in a high-security laboratory building at Yale University, law enforcement sources told NBC News on Monday. The suspect, a student, has defensive wounds, and failed a polygraph test, police said. The body found Sunday in the Yale Medical School building is believed to be that of Annie Le, a 24-year-old native of Placerville, Calif. She was last...

THE Jackson family were reeling last night after being given the results of a private autopsy they had demanded. Relatives had ask ed for their own report on the singer's body after the LA Coroner's office ruled out foul play. But the second autopsy has confirmed the findings of the first, which were revealed in The Sun on Monday. The news was broken to Jacko's mother Katherine at her home by the coroner who conducted the private examination. Family lawyer Brian Oxman said the findings were consistent and that the star's body bore "a number of unique and significant marks...

His hips, thighs and shoulders were riddled with needle wounds — believed to be the result of injections of narcotic painkillers, given three times a day for years. And a mass of surgery scars were thought to be the legacy of at least 13 cosmetic operations. The examination showed the 5ft 10in star — once famed for his on-stage athleticism — had: PLUNGED to a “severely emaciated” 8st 1oz. It is understood anorexic Jackson had been eating just one meagre meal a day. Pathologists found his stomach empty aside from partially-dissolved pills he took before the painkiller injection which stopped...

LOS ANGELES - Famed New York pathologist Michael Baden is on his way to California to perform a private autopsy on the body of David Carradine. "Baden is one of the most experienced forensic pathologists in the world. If there's something suspicious, he'll find it," said his friend Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, chairman of the Department of Forensic Sciences at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Baden, the former Chief Medical Examiner of New York City, confirmed to radaronline.com that he will be examining the body of the "Kung Fu" star.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles County coroner official says an autopsy has failed to determine the cause of death for adult film star Marilyn Chambers. Los Angeles County coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter said Tuesday that 56-year-old Chambers probably died of natural causes, but additional testing will be required. Chambers was found dead Sunday at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Canyon Country. Chambers starred in the explicit 1972 movie "Behind the Green Door," which helped bring hard-core adult films into the mainstream. Her appearance in the film cost the then-aspiring model and actress her job...

PONTIAC, Mich. — A medical examiner's office in Michigan has canceled public school tours after a high school group watched the autopsy of a 14-year-old girl from their district. The Detroit News reports Monday that Oakland County officials decided to stop the tours in Pontiac after they were contacted by the girl's parents, who were very upset about the March tour. Mike Zehnder, the county's director of public services, says it was "a poor decision" to let the tour go on.

In my previous life, I witnessed far more difficult postmortems. This one is easy. The patient was fatally stricken on Sept. 15 -- caught in the rubble when the roof fell in (at Lehman Brothers, according to the police report) -- although he did linger until his final, rather quiet demise on Nov. 4. In the excitement and decisiveness of Barack Obama's victory, we forget that in the first weeks of September, John McCain was actually ahead. Then Lehman collapsed, and the financial system went off a cliff. This was not just a meltdown but a panic. For an agonizing...

Tiffany Woods should one day look at the autopsy pictures of her starved baby, a Caddo District Court judge said this afternoon as she found Woods and her boyfriend guilty of letting their baby starve to death. The child's mother and father, who were Hurricane Katrina evacuees, had money for beer and cigarettes but not money to properly feed their child, the judge added. Judge Jeanette Garrett, who decided the case in lieu of a jury, found Woods and Emmanuel Scott guilty of second-degree murder in the death of their 5-month-old baby. Woods, 28, and Scott, 21, face mandatory life...

After MRI reveals woman killed during Ashkelon robbery was strangled, High Court instructs Jerusalem hospital to release body for burial, despite demand made by State Prosecutor's Office that it undergo autopsy. Zaka chairman: This is a great victory to the MRI method The High Court of Justice has instructed a Jerusalem hospital to release the body of Ziona Samin, the murdered wife of a prominent rabbi, so it can be buried. In this ruling, the judges rejected a demand by the State Prosecutor's Office that the body undergo an autopsy, after an MRI revealed that she had been strangled. The...

Given the great strides that have been made in preventing and treating heart disease, what explains Tim Russert’s sudden death last week at 58 from a heart attack? The answer, at least in part, is that although doctors knew that Mr. Russert, the longtime moderator of “Meet the Press” on NBC, had coronary artery disease and were treating him for it, they did not realize how severe the disease was because he did not have chest pain or other telltale symptoms that would have justified the kind of invasive tests needed to make a definitive diagnosis. In that sense, his...

The letter below is from one of the Marines whose team I am on who have been involved with the Hamdania Incident, both in fundraising and exposure to the public of information that the media has refused to cover, and that includes all conservative media like FOX News, NEWSMAX, World Net Daily, Ollie North, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Howie Carr. Some of them can be forgiven due to the large amount of e-mails received daily, but others were given extensive telephone interviews, with details, and some of them outright refused to consider this as an issue because it would not...

PHOENIX (AP) — A woman who died in police custody during an airport layover was intoxicated on a potent mix of alcohol and antidepressants and accidentally strangled herself on her shackles, an autopsy released Friday concludes.

Tech gunman shot victims over 100 times By KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho fired enough shots to wound his 32 victims more than 100 times before killing himself with a bullet to his head, a medical examiner said Sunday. Dr. William Massello, the assistant medical examiner based in Roanoke, said pathologists have sent blood samples for toxicology testing to determine if Cho was on drugs at the time of his rampage. It could take as long as two weeks to get the results of those tests, he said. Cho was not especially...