Wynette Apparently Died of Natural Causes

An autopsy on the exhumed body of Tammy Wynette showed the country singer died of heart failure caused by damage from repeated blood clots, Medical Examiner Bruce Levy said Thursday.

The role drugs may have played in Wynette’s 1998 death is impossible to determine because the autopsy took place a year after she died, Levy said.

Traces of Versed, a sedative, and Phenergan, used for nausea and as a sedative, were found in the body.

The exhumation and autopsy were prompted by a $50-million wrongful death lawsuit filed by Wynette’s four daughters. They allege their mother could have lived longer but her health wasn’t monitored closely enough and that she was given too many painkillers before her death.

Levy said that, if called, he would testify Wynette died of natural causes.

The lawsuit originally named Wynette’s fifth husband, George Richey, and her doctor Wallis Marsh of Pittsburgh as defendants. Richey was later dropped from the lawsuit.

Marsh has denied any wrongdoing.