A post-mortem conducted on the body of Steven Michael, 28, of Tapir Street, Fabers Road Extension, a teacher of the Ephesus Seventh Day Adventist School, confirmed that the cause of his death was acute lung failure, due to massive pulmonary edema.

The autopsy was conducted between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital by Dr. Mario Estradabran, police coroner.

In an interview with Amandala, Michael’s grieving father said that he will not challenge the doctor’s findings. He said that he had seen blood on the back of the head of his son, but surmised that the blood may have pooled there because he had been bleeding from the nose. He said that he was not aware of the lung problems that his son was suffering.

The neighbors told Amandala that Steven Michael was a strict man who was very careful and would not have opened his door to anyone he did not know, and would never leave his door open. They strongly believe that he opened his door to person or persons known to him, who killed him and stole his belongings sometime that Wednesday night.

Police said that there was no forced entry into the house, at the corner of Jaguar and Tapir Street. Police initially suspected that Michael’s death was a result of robbery, because missing from the house were Michael’s flat screen television, a laptop computer, his cellphone and wallet.

However, they later announced that foul play was not suspected, because the investigation was not pointing to murder, and they had not observed any signs of violence on Michael’s body, so they declared it a sudden death.

Michael was found by his housecleaner, who was passing by and saw his door open. She went in and saw him dead on his bed. She immediately alerted his father, who lived next door to him.

Police said that Steven Michael was found lying face-up in his bed and bleeding from the nose.

Michael’s father said that he was alerted that someone was trying to use his son’s ATM card at his bank on Tuesday night; the card had been in his wallet, which was stolen from his house that night

Senior Superintendent Alford Grinage, Commander of Precinct 2 police, said that it is not yet known how Michael’s belongings were stolen, if it was after his death, or before his death.

The loss is especially hard, said the grieving father, because Michael’s mother died 9 months ago, in October 2013, and his brother is very ill in the United States.

According to the website http://www.emedicinehealth.com, “Pulmonary edema is a common complication of atherosclerotic (coronary artery) disease. As the blood vessels that supply nutrients to the heart tissue progressively narrow, the heart muscle may not receive enough oxygen and nutrients to pump efficiently and adequately. This can limit the heart’s ability to pump the blood it receives from the lungs to the rest of the body. If a heart attack occurs, portions of the heart muscle die and is replaced by scar tissue, further limiting the heart’s pumping capability, leaving it unable to meet its work requirements. When the heart muscle is not able to pump effectively there is a back-up of blood returning from the lungs to the heart; this backup causes an increase in pressure within the blood vessels of the lung, resulting in excess fluid leaking from the blood vessels into lung tissue.”