A cocktail of seven prescription drugs triggered Michael Jackson's cardiac arrest on Thursday morning (25Jun09), according to new reports from Los Angeles.
The pop superstar, 50, was pronounced dead at 2.36pm local time after falling into a deep coma at his home in Holmby Hills, California.
Reports suggest paramedics who were called to his home found Jackson unconscious and unable to breathe, and rushed him to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.
And now, celebrity magazine Life & Style reports Jackson was hooked on prescription drugs in the months before his death.
A source tells the publication Jackson had been popping pills, including anti-anxiety drugs Xanax and Zoloft and painkiller Demerol, for weeks before his death.
And an insider tells Life & Style Jackson took a suspected overdose of drugs on Thursday morning, which caused respiratory and cardiac arrest.
The report follows comments made by Jackson family lawyer, Brian Oxman, after learning of the pop star's death.
He hinted the icon was killed by an abuse of prescription drugs in an interview with CNN, and likened the pop star's death to that of tragic star Anna Nicole Smith.
He is adamant the Thriller singer's death is down to the people who surrounded the star, and he believes an "abuse of medications" is the reason for Jackson's untimely demise.
He explains, "I believe (his manager) Frank DiLeo was with him at the time (of his heart attack), that is what I have been told.
"This family has been trying for months and months and months to take care of Michael Jackson. The people who have surrounded him have been enabling him.
"If you think the case of Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, that is nothing compared to what has taken place in the life of Michael Jackson.
"I do not know what medications he was taking, but the reports that we have received within the family are that they were extensive.
"I don't know the cause of all this. But this is something that I feared. This is a case of abuse of medications, unless the cause is something else.
"This was something which I feared and something which I warned about. Where there is smoke there is fire."