TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida medical examiner says television pitchman Billy Mays likely died of a heart attack but further tests are needed.
Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams said today the boisterous, bearded 50-year-old known for hawking Oxiclean suffered from hypertensive heart disease. He was found dead Sunday in his Tampa home. A day earlier he bumped his head during a rough landing on a commercial airliner, but Adams says there there was no evidence of head trauma.
He says Mays was taking the prescription painkillers Tramadol and hydrocodone for hip pain. But Adams says there was no indication of drug abuse, and pill counts showed Mays had been taking the correct amount of the drugs.
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