Patton Oswalt Reveals the Cause of Wife Michelle’s Death

Comedian says his wife suffered from an undiagnosed heart condition

patton oswalt michelle mcnamara
Patton Oswalt and Michelle McNamara (Getty Images)

Patton Oswalt shared insight into his wife Michelle McNamara’s death on Friday, revealing the cause of McNamara’s death last year.

In a statement issued to the Associated Press, Oswalt said that the coroner’s office told him that McNamara died from a combination of prescription medications and a heart condition that had not been diagnosed.

According to Oswalt, McNamara suffered from a condition that caused blockages in her arteries, a condition that he and McNamara didn’t know of.

“We learned today the combination of drugs in Michelle’s system, along with a condition we were unaware of, proved lethal,” Oswalt said.

McNamara had taken Aderall, Xanax and fentanyl, which combined with the blockages caused her death.

McNamara, a true-crime writer, died in the couple’s Los Angeles home in April 2016. She was 46.

Previously, Oswalt theorized that his wife might have died of an overdose.

“I have a feeling it might have been an overdose,” Oswalt told the New York Times in October, noting that McNamara had taken Xanax before going to bed. “That’s what the paramedics there were saying while I was screaming and throwing up.”

The comedian recalled that, when he left a cup of coffee for her on a bedside table at 9:40 a.m., McNamara was snoring, but when he returned to their bedroom shortly before 1 p.m., she was no longer breathing. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.

“I was literally blinking trying to get out of this,” Oswalt said of her death.

Oswalt and McNamara married in 2005. They had a daughter together in 2009.

 

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