Heath Ledger Dead at Age 28

Tuesday afternoon, the 28-year-old actor and father, Heath Ledger was found dead in his New York apartment at approximated 3:30pm. His body was found, still in bed, surrounded with sleeping pills. Ledger's massage therapist arrived on Broome Street in SoHo for an appointment Ledger had made. Ledger's housekeeper and massage therapist came into the room, only to find him unconscious.

At first, no one thought that he had committed suicide. They called 911 and officials soon rushed to the scene with a gurney. The crowd grew outside of the young stars home and according to OrlandoSentinel.com, "bout 150 paparazzi and gawkers gathered along both sides of Broome Street, where Ledger lived in a five-story building on an upscale block". Ledger has a daughter named Matilda who will now grow up without her father. An autopsy is planned for tomorrow, Wednesday, January 23, 2008.

Within hours of learning of Heath Ledgers death, websites such as HeathLedger.net became bogged down from all of the traffic it was receiving. People from all across the country navigated to his website in search of new details. Even now, the website is hard to get into. At some points during the day, it took as long as 10 minutes to get through just a few pages of this young stars website. Fans have begun flooding web pages such as Ledger's MySpace and Facebook with tons of comments of condolence and grief.

Academy Award nominee, Heath Ledger is internationally known for his roles in many great films such as 10 Things I Hate About You, A Knights Tale, The Brothers Grimm and recently, Brokeback Mountain. He was also cast as The Joker in The Dark Knight, a new Batman movie. And according to IMDB.com, he was in the process of filming the movie, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The was a wonderful actor and a talented star and so far, there has been no speculation into why this A-list star would chose to end his life.

In the coming days, new information should surface regarding what caused the young star's death. Both information from the autopsy and new insight from those who knew Ledger will, no doubt, bring much needed closure to not only Ledger's friends and family but also his entire fan base. Until then, hundreds of fans will continue to visit his web pages and leave messages of sorrow and grieve concerning the sad story of Heath Ledger's death.