Whitney Houston's Death: Singer's Doctors to Be Questioned About Sedative Prescriptions

Singer was found in hotel bathtub with presciption drugs nearby.

ByABC News
February 14, 2012, 3:54 AM

Feb. 14, 2011— -- Investigators will be looking into doctors who wrote multiple sedative prescriptions for Whitney Houston as they try to determine the cause of the pop superstar's death.

Los Angeles County Coroner's Office Assistant Chief Ed Winter told ABC News the office is "conducting an investigation and will try to obtain medical records from her doctors."

The coroner said Sunday the autopsy on the singer was complete, but results would not be finalized pending toxicology reports, which could take up to eight weeks.

On Monday, Beverly Hills police revealed that Houston was found "underwater and unconscious" in the bathtub of a Beverly Hills, Calif., hotel room Saturday afternoon. Prescription drugs were found nearby. Photographs published by TMZ show bottles of champagne and beer were in the adjacent room and on the floor next to the tub where she died.

ABC News confirmed Monday that Houston's aunt, Mary Jones, found her in the bathtub and tried to revive her before paramedics arrived at the scene.

PHOTOS: Whitney Houston Through the Years

Houston will be laid to to rest after a private, invitation-only funeral service in New Jersey on Saturday that will not take place at the Prudential Center arena, the owner of the funeral home making her arrangements announced today.

"Whitney Houston's funeral will be held at noon on Saturday at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark," Carolyn Wigham, the owner of the Wigham Funeral Home, told reporters today. New Hope is the same church where Houston honed her powerful voice in the choir.

Wigham said that Houston's mother, Cissy Houston, was at the funeral home until 2 a.m. this morning. She "made it clear that a funeral must be inside a church," and that the Prudential Center, where members of Houston's family had said a public memorial for the singer was in the works, was not an appropriate venue.

On Monday night, Houston's body arrived via private jet and gold-colored hearse to her home state of New Jersey, two days after she was found dead in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.

Many of Houston's friends and family have left California for New Jersey. Ray Watson -- Houston's brother-in-law and bodyguard -- and more family members are back in the Garden State. going. Her daughter Bobbi Kristina was thought to be in New Jersey with her mother's family but the Brown camp now says she is still in California with her father and other siblings.

The plane believed to be carrying the singer's body landed at Teterboro Airport, north of Newark, N.J., at 10:31 p.m. ET Monday.

Longtime Bodyguard Tried to 'Eliminate Negative Influences'

Meanwhile, one of the closest members of Houston's team is speaking out about her drug dependence. Alan Jacobs was the director of security for Houston from 1995 to 2002, and often spent 12 hours a day with the singer. On "Good Morning America" today, Jacobs said that while he never saw Houston do drugs, he could see their effect on her.

"It's like living in the eye of a hurricane, and constantly trying to fight being pulled into the swirl of activity that surrounds you," he said. "Whatever was going on, was not something that was in control, and certainly was something I felt needed to be addressed. so I took action to address it. I eliminated access to her by certain people that I thought were negative influences."

Despite his attempts to keep Houston away from trouble's path, Jacobs eventually had to concede that he couldn't protect her all of the time. As Houston said in her infamous 2002 interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer, "the biggest devil is me."