The medical examiner, Dr. Charles Norris, said he found indications that Stevens had taken an overdose of a drug. Dr. Milton J. Wilson believed that Stevens had taken a sedative that did not contain an opiate. Wilson was called to Stevens' apartment the day before her death after she was found in a coma. He contended that pneumonia was the cause of the actress' death. Pneumonia developed after she lapsed into a coma. An autopsy revealed the official cause of death to be "congestion of the viscera", which may have occurred from pneumonia that developed suddenly.