“DEATH HERE FOR BILLY MAYS…” as TV’s top pitchman dies in his sleep in Tampa
June 29, 2009 at 7:20 am by Wayne Garcia
The list of recent celebrity deaths continued over the weekend as one of Tampa’s celebs, TV infomercial pitchman Billy Mays, was found dead in his condo bedroom Sunday morning after he didn’t wake up.
The New York Times reports:
The Tampa Police Department said Mr. Mays was unresponsive when discovered by his wife on Sunday morning and was pronounced dead at 7:45 a.m. by the Tampa Fire Rescue Department. An autopsy is expected to be completed by Monday afternoon, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who was one of the first responders to Mr. Mays’s home.
On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Mays was on a US Airways flight from Philadelphia that apparently ruptured a front nose tire when it landed at Tampa International. Mr. Mays told a Fox News affiliate in Tampa that he had been struck hard on the head by a falling object when the plane landed.
No passengers from the flight reported injuries to emergency personnel who were at the landing scene, according to Brenda Geoghagan, a spokeswoman for the Tampa International Airport.
That evening Mr. Mays, who was scheduled to have hip-replacement surgery on Monday, told his wife, Deborah, that he was not feeling well, and after eating dinner he went to bed, she told investigators. Lieutenant Dugan said there was no initial indication that the airplane incident had played a role in Mr. Mays’s death.
UPDATE: A noon newser is set at the Medical Examiner’s Office to release preliminary results of the investigation into Mays’ death. Stay tuned.
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