PERTH, Australia (AFP) - The family of Hollywood actor Heath Ledger, found dead in his New York apartment two weeks ago, returned home to Australia on Tuesday ahead of a private funeral expected later this week.
The cause of the 28-year-olds death remains a mystery, with a post-mortem inconclusive, a toxicology report yet to be released and conflicting speculation that he was a drug user and suffering from pneumonia.
Ledger scored critical acclaim for his powerful performance as a repressed gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain" in 2005, and was seen as a rising star in Hollywood.
His father Kim Ledger, who returned to Perth from Los Angeles with Heaths mother Sally Ledger Bell and sister Kate, has described his Australian actor sons death as an "accidental passing".
The family have spent the past two weeks in the United States where they held a Hollywood memorial service in Los Angeles, a private family service in New York and visited his Manhattan residence.
They flew back to Perth on Tuesday, but were immediately shepherded away from the waiting media.
"They literally had police around them," one passenger, who declined to be named, told the Australian Associated Press.
"They walked out of the plane, into the lounge and straight into the lift. That was it."
Ledger, 28, was found dead on January 22, shocking Hollywood. His memorial service in Los Angeles drew an A-list of mourners including Tom Cruise and wife Katie Holmes, Sienna Miller and Ellen DeGeneres.
Ledgers ex-partner Michelle Williams, and the mother of his two-year-old daughter Matilda Rose, attended both services but has made a plea for privacy.
"Please respect our need to grieve privately. My heart is broken," Williams said in a statement released by her spokeswoman last week.
"I am the mother of the most tender-hearted, high-spirited, beautiful little girl who is the spitting image of her father. All that I can cling to is his presence inside her that reveals itself every day."
Arrangements for Ledgers burial in Perth have not been made public, but it is expected his family will hold a private funeral later this week at which they will bury their son in the Ledger family plot at Karrakatta cemetery.
The actors former school, Guildford Grammar, had offered to hold the service but the request was declined by the stars family.
"I suspect that having had a memorial in the United States, they probably want the dignity of a private service," school spokesman Graeme Plumber said.
Ledgers most recent release was the Bob Dylan movie "Im Not There".
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