‘The Walking Dead’ actress Alicia Witt’s parents most likely froze to death at home, according to medical tests. Witt said she tried to persuade her parents to move. But the older couple was very adamant.
Alicia Witt’s parents, father Robert H. Witt, 87, and mother Diane Witt, 75, were found dead at their Massachusetts home on December 20, 2021. The cause of death was officially listed as “probable cardiac arrhythmia due to exposure to cold”. Their house was quite old and neighbors of the couple said the heating didn’t work for a while.
It is believed the elderly couple had died of hypothermia caused by prolonged exposure to the cold after one of the couple was found wearing a coat. Her health had been declining for some time as Robert suffered from coronary artery disease, high blood pressure and multiple myeloma while Diane Witt battled Parkinson’s disease. The night before the bodies were found was the coldest of the month.
Alicia Witt broke her silence on the tragic death of her parents just last month. She shared that her parents refused any help. “My parents weren’t penniless, they were extremely stubborn, beautifully original souls, which is why they made decisions I couldn’t talk them out of. I helped them in any way I could,” the actress wrote in an emotional post on Facebook.
“I had no idea her heating stopped working. I’ll never understand how or why they chose not to tell me, to let me help them with that. My heart is broken,” she wrote.
The 46-year-old also wrote that she tried several times to get her parents to move, but they reacted angrily and explained to her that Witt didn’t have to tell them how to live their lives. Witt added, “It wasn’t because I didn’t try or on the part of other people who loved her.”
Witt said an officer told her on the phone that her parents had been found dead after she called social services because she was concerned she hadn’t heard from them. An autopsy was performed but authorities have yet to confirm the exact cause of death.
Alicia Witt first rose to fame as a nine-year-old in David Lynch’s Dune, then in his Twin Peaks, and later for her role in Season 6 of The Walking Dead.