Celebrity | Joan Rivers Why Joan Rivers Will Get No Autopsy Her grief-stricken daughter Melissa won't order one By Neal Colgrass Posted Oct 19, 2014 12:25 PM CDT Copied This Oct. 5, 2009 file photo shows Joan Rivers posing in Cannes, southeastern France. Rivers, 81, died Sept. 4, 2014. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File) Did Joan Rivers die from lack of oxygen to the brain? We may never know. New York City's chief medical examiner pinned it on oxygen deprivation, but Joan's grief-stricken daughter Melissa wants no autopsy performed—and New York law is OK with that as long as there's no evidence of criminal activity, TMZ reports. The examiner's findings, released Thursday, call her death a "predictable complication" from a procedure on her throat and vocal chords (meaning either the procedure itself or the anesthesia, propofol, is to blame, the BBC reports, but sources tell TMZ it wasn't the propofol). Meanwhile, the New York State Health Department will keep investigating Rivers' death from an "unplanned" biopsy at an endoscopy clinic in Manhattan, Radar reports. Read These Next The gunman who killed 4 at a Michigan church was an ex-marine. Multiple people have been shot at a Mormon church in Michigan. 'We heard a big bang,' says churchgoer in Michigan Skydivers leap from plane 2 minutes before fatal crash. Report an error