OMI: Heart disease killed Johnny Tapia

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Just like her husband did in life, Teresa Tapia stepped into the ring Wednesday.

She was determined to set the record straight on what killed her husband, five-time world champion boxer Johnny Tapia.

"People didn't give him the benefit of the doubt," Teresa Tapia said at a news conference at the Team Tapia gym.  "It was just, 'He died of an overdose; everyone expected it.'  Well, that's not what happened."

Johnny Tapia's struggles with addiction were well-known during his life. He was hospitalized and served prison time for using cocaine.

He was  found dead in his Albuquerque home  on May 27 at the age of 45. Investigators reported finding one tablet of hydrocodone, a prescription painkiller, on the floor beside his body.

According to an autopsy report made public Wednesday, Tapia was killed by heart disease and hypertension. There were no illegal drugs found in toxicology screenings of the boxer.

There were two prescription drugs in his system, hydrocodone and Seroquel, that likely played a role in his death according to medical investigators.

"Hydrocodone can cause respiratory depression, which may have decreased oxygenation to the heart," Chief Medical Investigator Dr. Ross Zumwalt wrote in the report.

Teresa Tapia said her husband was taking Seroquel for his bipolar disorder.

Those drugs, past cocaine use and a history of high blood pressure and medication to reduce it all likely played a role in Tapia's death.

"You think of Johnny [dying by] falling off a mountain or jumping off a boat, something extreme, but you wouldn't think of heart disease," said Teresa Tapia. "They call it the silent killer, and it's true. I mean it snuck up on him, on us, and it took him away."

But in one sense, Teresa Tapia says it was a fitting end.

"Johnny had a heart that was so big, he gave out so much of it that there was nothing left," she said. "I feel that's the way he went."

Tapia will be memorialized in two movies, a documentary and a feature film. Teresa Tapia said the feature will start filming in Albuquerque in January with actor Shiloh Fernandez playing Johnny.