Houston: ‘Heart condition’

Los Angeles, March 23: Singer Whitney Houston appears to have suffered a heart episode before accidentally drowning in the bathtub of a Beverly Hills hotel suite, according to coroner’s officials who listed cocaine use as a contributing factor.

The autopsy results were released yesterday after weeks of intense speculation over how the 48-year-old pop star died.

Houston had battled drug addiction for years, and the coroner's office found traces of several drugs — including marijuana, the anti-anxiety medication Xanax, the muscle relaxant Flexeril as well as Benadryl — in her system. But the coroner's office concluded that those drugs did not contribute to her death.

Cocaine did play a role, though officials would not say how much of the drug was in her system.

“She could have had a heart attack,” rendering her unconscious, and then become submerged in the filled tub, said Ed Winter, the coroner’s deputy chief for operations.

A law enforcement source said that no cocaine was found in Houston’s room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The autopsy found that the singer suffered from a pre-existing condition known as atherosclerotic heart disease.