Andrew Getty's parents, Ann and Gordon, confirmed the
47-year-old's death and requested privacy for the family during
"this extremely difficult time", adding that further details
would be released as they became available.
Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Commander Andrew Smith
said it was very early in the investigation and witnesses were
being questioned, but no one was in custody.
"At first glance, it does not appear to be a criminal type of
act. But that could change," Smith said on Tuesday night.
The death appeared to be either accidental or natural, Los
Angeles County Coroner's Office spokesman Ed Winter told
reporters in a news conference broadcast by TV station KTLA 5.
"He had some medication that we recovered and don't know if he
had taken the medication or what his medical history is, we do
have a doctor's name that we're also going to follow up," Winter
said.
The cause of Andrew Getty's death was not immediately known.
Celebrity news website TMZ.com reported that Getty, an heir to
his grandfather's oil fortune, was found in a bathroom of his
Hollywood Hills home about 2 p.m. in suspicious circumstances,
and that a former girlfriend was being detained as a potential
witness or suspect.
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Andrew Getty had sought a restraining order against a woman two
weeks earlier, The Los Angeles Times said.
Getty appeared to have suffered blunt force trauma, though the cause
was unclear, the paper reported, citing an anonymous law enforcement
official.
Police blocked off the street outside the home with yellow
crime-scene tape as more than a dozen news crews and photographers
gathered.
Getty's grandfather, J. Paul Getty, merged several smaller oil
companies into Getty Oil in the 1960s.
At one time one of America's richest men, he was also an avid art
collector who established the trust that funds the J. Paul Getty
Museum and several other institutions.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sandra
Maler, Eric Walsh, Simon Cameron-Moore and Clarence Fernandez)
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