LOS ANGELES — Actor Anne Heche’s death after a car crash into a Los Angeles home this month has been ruled an accident by the county medical examiner.
Heche, 53, known for her roles in “Donnie Brasco” and other films, was removed from life support and died Sunday, nine days after she crashed her Mini Cooper into a home in Los Angeles’ Mar Vista neighborhood.
The crash caused a fire. The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office on Wednesday ruled the cause as inhalation and thermal injuries and the manner as an accident.
Heche crashed her car into the home in Mar Vista, on Los Angeles’ west side east of Santa Monica, around 11 a.m.
She had been on life support at a burn center. On Friday her spokesperson said she was brain-dead but was being kept on life support to donate her organs.
The representative for Heche has said multiple organs would be donated.
“We have lost a bright light, a kind and most joyful soul, a loving mother, and a loyal friend,” Heche’s family said in a statement Friday as she was still on life support.
A Los Angeles police spokesman had said police were investigating the crash as a felony DUI collision. After she was declared brain-dead, police said that there would be no more investigative efforts but that records and information previously requested would still be collected.
Heche landed her first notable role on the soap opera “Another World” fresh out of high school, which she attended in New Jersey and Chicago. She portrayed Vicky Hudson and Marley Love on the series into the early 1990s.
Later that decade, she made her mark in Hollywood with roles in “Donnie Brasco,” “Volcano” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
