Autopsy fails to find cause of Ledger's death

Grieving fans in New York and around the world face a long wait to find out what caused the death of Heath Ledger. Medical examiners revealed yesterday that initial autopsy results were inconclusive barely 24 hours after the young actor was found dead in a Manhattan apartment on Tuesday.

Investigators confirmed that they had found a variety of prescription and non-prescription pills in the rented SoHo apartment where Ledger's body was found, fuelling rumours that an accidental overdose had killed the 28-year-old star.

And last night, police confirmed reports that a rolled-up 20 dollar note was found near Ledger's body, but said no illegal drugs were found in his apartment.

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The actor's spokesman last night appealed to the media to "avoid speculation until the facts are known".

In November, the Australian-born star told The New York Times he had "stressed out a little too much" while working last year on The Dark Knight, the new Batman movie which is due to open this summer, and I'm Not There, an ensemble piece in which he was one of several actors portraying the singer Bob Dylan. He spoke of being prescribed pills for insomnia, but said they had "failed to work". "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night," Ledger explained. "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going."

Ledger had moved to the SoHo apartment, listed for rent at $23,000 (£11,800) a month, after his break-up last year from his fiancée, Michelle Williams, whom he met on the set of Brokeback Mountain, the gay cowboy epic that earned him an Oscar nomination in 2006.

The couple had a daughter, two-year-old Matilda Rose. Williams was yesterday flying to New York from Sweden where she had been filming. By midnight on Tuesday, the initial swarm of paparazzi along the block of Broome Street where Mr Ledger lived had mostly departed, leaving just a few New Yorkers lingering on the pavement and staring up at the fourth-floor apartment. "He was just starting to make it big. It was so untimely and that's what hurts," said Travis Ferguson, a 20-year-old student in cinema studies at New York University. Jenny O'Reilly had come to the street after visiting a nearby bar with a friend: "It's the baby and her mother he leaves behind that is the worst thing," she said.

Just to the side of the entrance to the building a small shrine of flowers, candles, written notes and pictures of Ledger is starting to build up. "Heath, wherever you are, I hope you are at peace," one hand-written tribute began. Julia Stiles, who starred opposite Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You, his first film after moving to Los Angeles from Australia aged 19, was a few blocks away at a popular bar and restaurant. "I am drinking away my sorrows right now," she said.

It will be at least 10 days before the final autopsy results are available. Unsubstantiated reports were beginning to surface last night that Ledger had been suffering from depression since his split from Williams and may have been fighting an addiction to heroin. One website claimed he had pneumonia.

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