Billy Mays Likely Died of Heart Attack, Medical Examiner Says
Billy Mays
Television pitchman Billy Mays likely died in his sleep of a heart attack, a medical examiner said Monday.
Mays, whose wife found him dead Sunday morning at their home in Tampa, had hypertensive heart disease, Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams told reporters. Adams said more tests were needed to conclusively determine the cause of death.
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Though Mays, 50, was hit on the head in a rough landing at Tampa International Airport on Saturday, Adams said the autopsy showed no sign of head trauma. The wall of the left ventricle of his heart and one of his arteries were enlarged, Adams said.
"The heart disease is perfectly consistent with sudden death," Adams said.
Mays, the bearded, enthusiastic star of ads for such products as OxiClean, also starred in the Discovery series Pitchmen.
"While it provides some closure to learn that heart disease took Billy from us, it certainly doesn't ease the enormous void that his death has created in our lives," his wife, Deborah, said in a statement. "As you can imagine, we are all devastated."
