An official with a Bahamian funeral home says Jett Travolta’s death certificate says he was killed by a “seizure.”
Glen Campbell is assistant director of the funeral home handling the remains of John Travolta’s 16-year-old son.
He tells The Associated Press that the body is in “great condition” and shows no sign of head trauma, despite police officials who said the teen may have hit his head on a bathtub.
Authorities performed an autopsy Monday but didn’t release the results. Campbell said the certificate was based on the autopsy findings, and gave no information on the cause of death beyond the word “seizure.”
Jett Travolta’s body is now at the Grand Bahama airport en route for burial in Ocala, Fla., where the actor owns a home.
Travolta tried CPR to revive his son, and Jett may have died in his arms before an emergency medical technician took over, Usmagazine.com reported, citing McDermott and another attorney for Travolta, Michael Ossi.
“We are heartbroken that our time with him was so brief. We will cherish the time we had with him for the rest of our lives,” Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston, said Sunday in their first public statement since Jett’s death.
Travolta, 54, and Preston, 46, have said that Jett became very sick when he was 2 years old and was diagnosed with Kawasaki Syndrome, an illness that leads to inflamed blood vessels in young children. Preston has blamed household cleaners and fertilizers and said that a detoxification program based on teachings from the Church of Scientology helped improve his health, according to People magazine.
A police statement said that Jett had not been seen since Thursday when a caretaker, Jeff Kathrain, found him unconscious late Friday morning.
But Michael McDermott, an attorney for the actor, said police wrongly left the impression that Jett was unsupervised. He said two nannies were with Jett throughout the evening, and he does not believe the teen was in the bathroom for a long time.
About a dozen security guards and Bahamian police officers patrolled around the luxury Old Bahama Bay resort community Sunday where Travolta and Preston remained inside their home. The white-sand beach in front of the suites was closed.
The couple also have an 8-year-old daughter, Ella Bleu.
Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham sent condolences to the Travolta family and said the autopsy is a formality the country requires in cases of sudden death to rule out foul play.