The Walking Dead Actor Alicia Witt's Parents' Cause of Death Revealed

By Cameron Bonomolo

The Massachusetts state medical examiner's office has determined Robert and Diane Witt, the parents of The Walking Dead actor Alicia Witt, died of exposure to the cold at the ages of 87 and 75. The Witts were found dead in their Massachusetts home in December with no signs of foul play or trauma, according to the Worcester Police Department. In an update, The Telegram & Gazette (via NBC 10 WJAR) report death certificates issued Wednesday list the cause of death as "probable cardiac dysrhythmia" due to the cold. Witt previously called a cousin to check in on her parents, who had been living in a poorly maintained home without heat, according to neighbors. 

Speaking out on her parents' sudden death in a January 25 post to social media, Witt said she "hadn't been allowed" inside the home for "well over a decade." 

"Every time I offered to have something repaired for them, they refused to allow workers into their house," she wrote in the post published to Facebook and Instagram. "I begged, cried, tried to reason with them, tried to convince them to let me help them move — but every time, they became furious with me, telling me I had no right to tell them how to live their lives and that they had it all under control." 

Witt added her parents "were not penniless" but were "fiercely stubborn, beautifully original souls, and with that, they made choices – choices that I couldn't talk them out of. I did help them, in all the ways I could — in all the ways they would let me."

"I struggle, as much as I helped, with what else could I have done — short of petitioning the court system for taking control of two otherwise very sharp, very independent, very capable adults," the post continued. "They were a united, intertwined, indivisible force, determined to do things their own way. knowing they had each other — battling them the way I would have had to in order to do this truly felt like it would have destroyed them."

Witt concluded: "I had no idea that their heat had gone out. I will never understand how or why they made the choice not to tell me this, not to let me help them with this. My heart is broken."

Witt played Paula, a member of the Saviors, in The Walking Dead Season 6 episode "The Same Boat." Witt is also known for roles on Orange Is the New Black, Stargirl, Twin Peaks, TV's The Exorcist, and Supernatural. 

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