Did toxic mold kill Brittany Murphy and her husband Simon Monjack?

by | Apr 13, 2022 | Mold Deaths

Actress Brittany Murphy died suddenly from pneumonia and anemia in 2009.

She was only 32.

Five months later, her husband, Simon Monjack, dropped dead from the exact same illness.

He was just 40.

The Clueless actress and the British screenwriter were both mysteriously found dead in the same house within five months of each other.

So, what may have caused these two souls to die at such a young age? Was it murder? Drugs?

Or possibly a hidden killer in their home?

The autopsy reports revealed that they were not murdered and did not overdose on drugs. They died because they were deathly sick, as if from old age or a frail person with a serious disease. But they were far from it.

The facts are that they both lived in an 8,000 square-foot water-damaged Hollywood Hills home that also had mold for over five years before Brittany Murphy was discovered dead in her bathroom on December 20, 2009.

They also had symptoms and illnesses such as pneumonia, which is also associated with fungal infections of the lungs.

When you study the history of the Murphy family home and then the symptoms, illnesses and eyewitness reports of both Brittany and Simon, it is obvious that mold played a factor and the evidence is overwhelming.

If we are to ask Brittany Murphy’s mother, Sharon Murphy, she had claimed that toxic mold found in Brittany’s home killed her daughter and her son-in-law. She said the builders of the home were to blame for the mold that caused their illnesses, such as pneumonia.

In fact, media company, Inside Edition had taken a tour of the Muphy’s home shortly after her death and found the windows and doors covered in plastic sheeting by a mold removal company.

Yes, after Brittany’s death, a mold company went quick to work to remove mold, just like a crime clean-up lab would work after a criminal act was committed.

Inside Edition concluded the story, “Her once luxurious mansion lies abandoned and gutted—the mold infested home, unfit to live in.”

After media stories had come out about mold being the possible cause of the couple’s death, The Hollywood Reporter stated that the Los Angeles County coroner’s office claimed Sharon would not allow his office to inspect the property for mold.

She has refuted that claim ever since it was made.

Sharon told the Daily Mail; His report conveniently ignores what any good scientist will tell you: A hair sample can be affected by many outside factors, including hair dye, hair spray, prescription medications, foods, smoking the occasional cigarette and environmental factors.

One cause we now know may have been toxic mold that was eventually discovered in that house — which may have been what really killed her.’

‘We will never know for sure,’ Sharon adds: ‘However, we do know the Los Angeles County Coroner did extensive tests and found that she died of natural causes. And now she is a real living angel in heaven.’

This was about the time when Brittany’s father, Angelo Bertolotti, got involved.

Bertolotti brought a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Country Department of Coroner in 2012 disputing the conclusions of the autopsy report and requested that biological samples from an independent lab determine whether poisons, toxins or heavy metals played a role in his daughter’s death.

This would have been the tests that could have found mold and mycotoxins in Brittany’s body, but after failing to meet several court filings and a hearing no-show, a judge terminated the case.

Sharon ended up settling the mold lawsuit for $600,000 with the home’s builders over defects in the home in which she gave up her right to revise the original complaint to a wrongful death suit.

A year later she sued her own attorneys for malpractice, alleging they “tricked her into settling,” which was reportedly settled out of court in 2013.

This makes perfect sense.

After all, lawyers are super shady and many molds are toxic and can also be deadly. It has been proven in many scientific studies to cause allergies, asthma, pneumonia, cancer and a whole host of various other diseases – including death!

The slimy lawyers talked her into settling. She regretted it, sued her own lawyers and they settled.

We also have more evidence such as Brittany did not want to live in her beautiful million-dollar Hollywood Hills home. After she died, her husband Simon said to The Hollywood Reporter;

“Every time we would drive up Sunset, Brit would say, ‘Please, can we stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel?’ I’d say, ‘Honey, you’ve got to be realistic. We have our house…We’re going to stay in it.”

So, why would Brittany Murphy hate living in her own 8,000 square foot home?

In addition to Sharon Murphy’s mold claims, Brittany’s hatred of the home and Inside Edition claiming they witnessed major mold remediation work going on there shortly after Britany’s death is the fact that the house had previously flooded due to a water heater that leaked in the attic.

It is well known that any flooding or water leaks will likely lead to a mold infestation if the water damage is not properly taken care of.

There is also the fact that Brittany Murphy and Simon Monjack’s home sat at the bottom of several hills. Water drains downhill and can easily penetrate a home’s foundation and exterior walls. Drainage and flooding issues that affect homes at the bottom of hills are a common problem.

I know this because I’m a professional mold inspector and mold remediator. Therefore, when it comes to water damage and mold in homes, I know what I’m talking about.

If you just Google homes at the bottom of a hill and mold, you will find a plethora of news stories and claims by people whose homes became mold infested from drainage problems.

Check out this image of Brittany Murphy’s and Simon Monjack’s home. You can clearly see their property sits at the bottom of several hills.

Let me also add that this is the former residence of pop singer Britney Spears back in 2003, while she was dating Justin Timberlake. She sold the home to actress Brittany Murphy in June 2003 for $3,850,000.
A few years later, Spears was in the news for crazy and erratic behavior during which she shaved her head, got two new tattoos, hit the L.A. club scene with a lot of drama, and attempted to smash a car window with an umbrella.

Quite possibly Britney Spears’ mental issues were the result of toxic mold poisoning from her former home, which is also a symptom of mold sickness.

The property is now known by some people as the cursed Hollywood Hills home.

Brittany Murphy’s mother and her husband told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011 that in 2009, they just came home from filming The Caller in San Juan, Puerto Rico, because Brittany refused to complete because she was suffering from a lung infection (staphylococcus aureus AKA staph).

Apparently, the infection lingered in her system, which later developed into full-blown pneumonia.

Also, add the fact that Simon Monjack was having seizures before he died.

Although weakened by her own serious illnesses, Brittany would rush to her husband’s side to hold his huge 300-pound body down, using a spoon to keep him from swallowing his tongue.

Linda Monjack, Simons mother, told the Daily Mail that her son mentioned mold in their Holywood Hills home. She “All I know is that before Simon’s death, he was having hallucinations that things were crawling out of his skin.”

Her mother reported that on the morning of her daughter’s death, Brittany had gone out on a balcony off of the bathroom around 3 a.m. to try to catch her breath.

She said her daughter told her, “Mommy, I can’t catch my breath.”

Sharon did not have the common sense to take her daughter to the hospital and instead gave Brittany tea. Her mother gave the reason that she looked parched and was “always so dramatic” about illnesses.

It was a fatal mistake. At around 7:30 a.m., Britanny suddenly collapsed on the bathroom floor.

Simon said he ran her under a cold shower as her mother called the police.

However, it was too late.

The Clueless star would die breathless in the moldy home she hated.

Initially, it was reported that the Los Angeles County Corner’s Office was going to look at mold as the possible cause of death.

Shortly after her death, assistant chief coroner Ed Winter told the Associated Press: “It appears to be natural.”

An autopsy was performed the day after she died. Her death certificate listed the cause of death as “deferred”.

On February 4, 2010, the Los Angeles County coroner stated that the primary cause of Murphy’s death was pneumonia, with secondary factors of iron-deficiency anemia and multiple drug intoxication.

Winter stated further, “It is unusual to have two people die of similar circumstances with pneumonia.

We’ve been looking at it and saying, ‘Something isn’t right.’

I’m not saying you can’t get pneumonia from mold, but we did all the tests on it — mold did not come up in the toxicology reports.”

As many people well know who understand the dangers of mold, and/or who have become sick from mold here in the U.S., trying to get the proper testing or any type of toxicology test for mold is almost impossible.

Just getting a doctor to listen to our stories and/or look further into mold as being a cause of our illnesses is equally impossible.

So, it is not surprising that “mold did not come up in the toxicology reports.”

Mold is almost ALWAYS overlooked and/or dismissed by our current U.S. medical system. It is rarely listed as the cause of an illness, disease and/or death. Mold is treated as if it is harmless. People who get sick from mold are crazy. It’s as if it doesn’t exist.

Yet, in other countries, such as the UK, it is well known by the medical system that mold is a common health problem and can be lethal, affecting tens of thousands of people in the UK.

Malcolm Richardson, Professor of medical mycology (the study of mold) at the University of Manchester, told the Daily Mail;

“It may seem extraordinary, but in fact mould in the home is a common health problem, affecting tens of thousands of people in the UK. Britain is especially prone to moulds, due to it being damp and cold so often, and because a lot of the housing is old,’ he says.

“Yet compared with countries such as America and Finland, there’s not much awareness of mould or the health damage it can cause – it can be fatal.”

‘Mould is an opportunistic fungus, and grows aggressively in the body, stopping the organs working properly – so it can be lethal,’ says Professor Richardson.

Mold Safe Solutions Conclusion:

So, here we have a UK  Professor of medical mycology (the study of mould) at the University of Manchester saying that not only can mold be lethal, but he also states the truth by saying there’s not much awareness of mold or the health damage it can cause here in the United States.

Brittany Murphy and Simon Monjack’s home was built in the Hollywood Hills and sat at the bottom of several hills. There was a known water leak caused by a water heater and her mother had claimed mold was the cause of both of their deaths. She even settled with the builders for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We have several smoking guns here pointing to mold as the possible cause of their deaths. But unfortunately, here in the U.S., we live in a dark age when it comes to mold awareness.

The completely remodeled Hollywood Hills cursed home that Brittany Murphy hated went on the market in 2016 for $18.4 million, a $1 million drop from the original asking price, and finally sold for $14,533,000 on 02/28/17.

Almost $4 million less than asking price!

Here’s a timeline of the deaths of Murphy and Monjack from the Wrap:

Dec 20, 2009

Paramedics respond to the West Hollywood home Brittany Murphy shares with husband Simon Monjack and mother Sharon Murphy. Brittany Murphy is transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she is pronounced dead after suffering cardiac arrest.

Dec 21, 2009
Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter says he believes Murphy died of “natural causes.”

Dec 29, 2009
L.A. County Coroner’s office releases Murphy’s death certificate, which lists official cause of death as “deferred” pending toxicology reports, which take several weeks. The certificate lists Murphy’s father as “unknown,” though his name is publicly known as Angelo Bertolotti.

Reports at the time suggest that Murphy and her father were estranged and had not spoken for three years before her death; Bertolotti had divorced her mother when Brittany was two years old. Bertolotti also did not attend his daughter’s funeral.

Feb 25, 2010
Murphy’s death is ruled accidental. Full autopsy results conclude pneumonia and anemia, exacerbated by a mixture of legal over-the-counter cold medications, caused Murphy’s death. The coroner reports that Murphy suffered a “chronic iron deficiency” due to heavy menstrual periods, which “leads to a weakened state of health and would increase her vulnerability to infection,” the autopsy report reads.

“Possible adverse physiological effects of elevated levels of these medications cannot be discounted, especially in her weakened state.”

May 23, 2010
Murphy’s widower Simon Monjack is found dead in the same West Hollywood home.

July 22, 2010
Assistant Chief Coroner Winter announces the cause of Monjack’s death was acute pneumonia and anemia, “just like Brittany.”

Sharon Murphy issues a statement admonishing the public to “stop the reckless innuendos that my daughter and son-in-law misused any kind of prescription medications.”

July 26, 2010
Winter refutes speculation that toxic mold in the home is what caused Murphy and Monjack’s deaths, though he says he did sit down with Monjack, Sharon Murphy, and their lawyer to discuss a possible mold problem during the investigation into Brittany’s death.

Sharon Murphy releases a statement contending that she had “never been personally asked by the Coroner or anyone from the Health Department to come and inspect my home for mold” in the wake of her daughter’s death. Winter calls that statement “an absolute lie,” but Murphy’s publicist, Roger Neal, says it’s absolutely true.

Neal says the home had been inspected for mold two months prior to Murphy’s death and been deemed safe for the family to occupy.

April 11, 2011

Repeated appeals from Bertolotti convince county officials to list his name as father on Murphy’s death certificate.

Dec 19, 2011

Sharon Murphy files a malpractice lawsuit against lawyers that represented her in a settlement against the builders of her home, after she had become convinced mold was indeed the cause of her daughter and son-in-law’s death.

Her allegation against the lawyers was that they did not make her aware that by settling with the builders, she waived her right to sue them for wrongful death.

The elder Murphy had reportedly begun to suspect mold when she tried to sell the house during summer 2011.

Jan 11, 2012

Murphy’s father Angelo Bertolotti sues the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office for access to Brittany’s hair samples, stating he disagrees with the official cause of her death and wants to conduct his own chemical analysis.

July 24, 2012

A judge dismisses Bertolotti’s suit due to his failure to follow up on initial claims and make required court appearances.

Feb 7, 2013

Sharon Murphy settles her malpractice lawsuit under undisclosed terms.

Summer 2013

Following a second unsuccessful lawsuit, the corner decides Bertolotti is nevertheless entitled to have the hair and tissues samples sent to a lab of his choice, once he conclusively proved he was Murphy’s father.

Nov 18, 2013

Angelo Bertolotti reveals a report from a private lab, the Carlson Company, that claims to have tested hair samples from his late daughter.

The report finds high levels of heavy metals in Murphy’s system, which Bertolotti argues is evidence Murphy and Monjack were deliberately poisoned. The Coroner tells TheWrap that it would be happy to look over the report if Bertolotti sends it — he says the documents are in the mail.

SOURCES:

US Magazine

ABC News

Daily Mail

The Wrap

Other source linked above

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