Celebrity death scenes
When beloved celebrities die prematurely, the scenes of their deaths become an eery part of pop culture lore. This home, for example, located at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard East, in Seattle, Washington, is where grunge music icon Kurt Cobain was found dead.
Kurt Cobain
The Nirvana frontman took his life with a shotgun, just days after checking out of a drug rehab facility in April 1994. A suicide note and heroin kit were found near his body.
This April 1994 photo of items strewn around Cobain's death scene wasn't released to the public until 2014, when a detective re-examining the case discovered several rolls of undeveloped film.
Paul Walker
On November 30, 2013, "Fast and Furious" star Paul Walker and his friend, financial planner Roger Rodas, got into a fiery crash on their way home from an event for Walker's charity, Reach Out Worldwide. The two men are believed to have been going as fast as 100mph in Rodas' 2005 Porsche Carrera GT, when the vehicle crashed into a concrete lamppost and burst into flames near Kelly Johnson Parkway in Valencia, California. Both men were avid racers.
Heath Ledger
Actor Heath Ledger died in January 2008 at the age of 28, just months before his chilling performance as the the Joker in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" wowed audiences everywhere.
Ledger's masseuse, Diana Wolozin, discovered him unconscious in bed in his fourth-floor loft apartment at 421 Broome Street in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. An autopsy and toxicological analysis later determined that Ledger died, "as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine;" in other words, a prescription drugs overdose.
Tupac Shakur
This black BMW, seen here sitting in a police impound lot, is riddled with bullet holes because it is the vehicle in which rapper Tupac Shakur was murdered in September 1996.
Shakur was shot five times and critically wounded on the night of September 7, while riding in a car with Death Row Records chairman Marion "Suge" Knight, after attending a heavyweight fight between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur, Suge Knight, and their entourage were reportedly en route to Las Vegas' Club 662 when the shooting occurred at the interection of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane. Shakur died of internal bleeding at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, six days later.
Marilyn Monroe
American sex symbol and movie star Marilyn Monroe was found dead in the bedroom of her Brentwood, California home on August 5, 1962, after overdosing on barbiturates. She was 36.
Her death was classified a probable suicide, but conspiracy theorists insist that she was murdered to cover up a series of affairs with the Kennedys.
Whitney Houston
Legendary singer Whitney Houston was found dead in room 434 at the Beverly Hilton hotel, on the eve of the Grammy Awards in 2012. The Los Angeles County coroner's report details that she was discovered face down in a water-filled bathroom with cocaine in her system and other drug paraphernalia nearby. Despite all the drugs and alcohol scattered around the hotel room, it was determined that Houston ultimately died of accidental drowning.
Natalie Wood
In November 1981, while filming her last movie, "Brainstorm," actress Natalie Wood drowned while on a weekend boat trip with her husband Robert Wagner and her "Brainstorm" co-star Christopher Walken. While Wagner later admitted to having had a fight with Wood shortly before her disappearance, neither of the men nor the boat's captain admitted to seeing her enter the water. As such, the circumstances surrounding her death have remained a mystery for decades.
Natalie Wood was 43 when she died. Her body was discovered about a mile from the boat, off the coast of California's Santa Catalina Island.
Joan Rivers
Groundbreaking female comedian Joan Rivers died on September 4, 2014 from complications during a routine endoscopy. Though Rivers was 81 at the time, a number of mistakes executed before and during the procedure at New York's Yorkville Endoscopy Offices are believed to have brought about her untimely death.
Rivers was transferred from the medical offices seen here to Mount Sinai Hospital after falling into a coma, from which she never recovered. Her ultimate cause of death was lack of oxygen to the brain.
The Notorious B.I.G.
In March 1997, less than a year after West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting, East Coast rapper Biggie Smalls was murdered in an eerily similar attack while on a trip to Los Angeles.
This intersection of Fairfax Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard is where the shooting occurred, shortly after midnight on Sunday, March 9, 1997. The Notorious B.I.G. was shot four times; the last of those four bullets striking his liver, colon, heart and left lung. He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center about an hour later.
The Notorious B.I.G.
Christopher Wallace, a.k.a The Notorious B.I.G., left a hip hop music party in the Miracle Mile section of Los Angeles around 12:30am on the night of March 9, 1997, after the LA Fire Department shut it down due to overcrowding. Biggie and his entourage then traveled in two GMC Suburbans; Biggie riding with Damion "D-Roc" Butler and Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Lil' Cease in the front car, Sean "Puffy" Combs riding with three bodyguards in the second car. At around 12:45am, a dark Chevrolet Impala SS pulled up alongside the SUV that Biggie was in, and an unidentified black male in a blue suit and a bow tie opened fire.
John Belushi
"Animal House" star John Belushi died in March 1982 at the age of 33, after being injected with a mixture of cocaine and heroine, known as a "speedball." At the time, Belushi, an original cast member of "Saturday Night Live," was staying in Bungalow 3 at the Chateau Marmont Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. He was discovered unconscious when his personal trainer arrived for a scheduled session.
Hollywood's Chateau Marmont Hotel was also the site where acclaimed fashion photographer Helmut Newton died in January 2003.
Cory Monteith
On the afternoon of July 13, 2013, "Glee" actor Cory Monteith was found dead in his room at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel in Vancouver, Canada. Due to check out that day, hotel staff discovered Monteith's body when he failed to do so.
Two autopsy reports completed by the British Columbia Coroners Service confirmed that Monteith's death was caused by "mixed drug toxicity." Traces of heroin, alcohol, codeine and morphine were detected in the system of the star, who had publicly struggled with addiction for years.
James Gandolfini
"Sopranos" star James Gandolfini died of a heart attack while staying at Rome's Boscolo Exedra Hotel on June 19, 2013. After a day of sightseeing in extreme heat with his family, Gandolfini was discovered unconscious on the bathroom floor of his hotel room by his 13-year-old son. The award-winning actor was 51 at the time of his death.
Robin Williams
Academy Award-winning actor Robin Willias committed suicide in his Marin County, California home on August 11, 2014. The renowned comedian hanged himself with a belt, and died of asphyxiation. There were no traces of alcohol or illegal drugs in his system.
Williams was 63 years old at the time of his death, and reportedly suffering from severe Lewy Body Dementia, depression, anxiety, and paranoia. Williams' widow, Susan, spoke out about his death for the first time in November 2015, telling ABC News, "We were living a nightmare."
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman, the consummate Hollywood supporting actor, was found dead in his Greenwich Village apartment on February 2, 2014. When the coroner's report came back a few weeks later, it confirmed what authorities had already suspected; Hoffman died of acute mixed drug intoxication.
The Academy Award-winning actor was found on the bathroom floor with a syringe still in his arm. He was 46.
Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse, the beehived soul-jazz diva whose self-destructive habits were as well-publicized as her distinctive musical talent, was found dead in her London home, on July 23, 2011. She was 27.
While the singer's cause of death was not immediately known, it was later determined that she died of alcohol poison, after battling alcoholism and addiction for years.
Chris Farley
"Saturday Night Live" comic Chris Farley died in December 1997, at the age of 33, of a cocaine and morphine overdose. The comedian's body was discovered by his brother, clad in pajamas, and lying in the entryway of his 60th-floor apartment in Chicago's John Hancock Building.
At the time of his death, Chris Farley had recorded over 80 percent of the voice work for the title character in the animated film, "Shrek." After his death, Farley's "SNL" co-star Mike Myers stepped in to replace him.
Brittany Murphy
When "Clueless" actress Brittany Murphy collapsed in the bathroom at her Los Angeles home, first responders and medical personnel were clueless as to what caused the cardiac arrest that led to her death at age 32. Was it a sickness? Was it an iron deficiency? Was it the combination of legal over-the-counter and prescription drugs in her system?
Brittany Murphy & Simon Monjack
When Murphy's widower, British screenwriter Simon Monjack, was discovered dead in the same Hollywood home just six months later, the prospect of a toxic mold in the house being the cause of the couple's deaths was even raised. In the end, though, the Los Angeles County coroner determined that both Murphy and Monjack's deaths were caused by a combination of pneumonia and anemia; a coincidence many fans still find fishy.
Elvis Presley
Rock music icon Elvis Presley was found unresponsive on the bathroom floor of his Memphis mansion, August 16, 1977. The cause of his death was highly disputed, and bounced back and forth for years between combined drug intoxication and a heart attack. Regardless, there is little doubt that polypharmacy was a major contributing factor.
