Andrew Getty: Oil Fortune Heir Had ‘Toxic’ Levels Of Meth In His System When He Died

Andrew Getty was heir to a billion dollar fortune, but instead the troubled 47-year-old died from a hemorrhage after doing meth, an autopsy found this week.

Andrew is the grandson of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, and had an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion, but could not shake his struggles with addiction. His ex-girlfriend told investigators that Andrew would do an eighth of an ounce of cocaine each day, and the autopsy found high levels of both cocaine and meth in his system.

Getty had been found dead inside his Los Angeles home back in March, naked from the waist down and bleeding from his rectum. A medical examiner determined that a gastrointestinal hemorrhage was the immediate cause, but drugs were considered a contributing factor. The death was ruled an accident.

NBC News noted that the death scene was chaotic, but did not point to foul play.

“Investigators found unspent shotgun shells scattered around Getty’s lower body, along with blood on and around the oil heir. Authorities initially questioned Getty’s girlfriend given a history of domestic-disturbances but the coroner’s report, however, concluded there were no signs of foul play.”

Leading up to the autopsy, there had been question about whether Andrew Getty may have been murdered.

Though the death was likely an accident, drugs reportedly played a key role. Medical examiners noted that the meth was at a “toxic” level in Getty’s body.

“Methamphetamine is a known cardiac central nervous stimulant,” said the medical report.

A friend had told the Daily Mail that Getty was suffering from irritable bowels for some time.

“Andrew was a great guy but massive partier and that’s well known. He took drugs to such an excess that I wouldn’t be surprised if his heart just gave out. He was having stomach problems, but it was bowel problems. The blow [cocaine] was giving him irritable bowls so he’d go from painful constipation to bloody diarrhea. He was complaining about blood in his stool, so he’d had that for a while. He blamed it on the coke use, actually. But Andrew mixed drugs so often and so much that I’m not sure how he can sort out which drug was doing which bit of damage to his body.”

The death also uncovered tension between Andrew Getty and his ex-girlfriend, Lanessa DeJonge, who found him dead. Getty claimed that DeJonge was using a medical condition he suffered to exploit him.

“A rise in my blood pressure places me in grave risk of substantial and irreparable injury or death,” Getty said in a court filing obtained by the New York Daily News. “Lanessa DeJonge is aware of my medical condition, and she has exploited this information to demand money and property from me, refusing to leave my house.”

This is not the first tragedy to strike the Getty family. Andrew’s cousin, J. Paul Getty III, fell into a life of drugs and partying after he was kidnapped as a teenager. He later suffered a stroke in his 20s, and died in 2011.

[Image via ABC News]