I read that he had a nonlethal amount of morphine in his system and died secondary to cardiovascular disease.
Completely untrue. Emergency services are dispatched immediately when notified of a dead body, regardless of state of rigor. They're certainly not going to say (especially when they can't confirm it themselves) "well he's already dead and he ain't coming back, so I'll just take a nap, run some errands, and get there when I can."
I suspect his death was an accidental overdose. Nothing to prove my theory but it makes more sense to me. When the mob wanted to whack a guy they just did it. Bullet to the back of the head and body buried in a field. Doubt they’d FORCE drugs into a guy and then stood around waiting to confirm he was dead. Then leaving the body to be found. The idea that a former heavyweight champion was “ murdered “ in mysterious fashion made for good book material but in all probability that’s not likely how it happened
When you put it that way, it does seem very odd that an organized criminal group would do such a long winded thing that could potentially lead back to them (DNA, discarded tools, etc). If the mob was really angry at Liston, making him overdose doesn't seem like a very practical method to get rid of him.
Surprised so many people in this thread have never heard of a hot shot, a common tactic used by the MOB. I'm not necessarily saying Liston was murdered, but the arguments in this thread are very unconvincing.
In those days they didn’t have the forensic capabilities to analyze DNA but it still doesn’t make sense
Hot shot was typically done by the user to get a big high fast and a lot times people killed themselves in doing it. I believe that it’s something the mob could have used but I just doubt it. I can’t imagine three guys going into Liston’s home, holding him down ( fun task I’m sure) Forcing a needle into him. Waiting for the drugs to kick in. Maybe checking his pulse. Finding his heart still beating so maybe hitting him up again. And finally after he’s dead just leaving his body there for the police to find. Easier to put a cap in him, throw him in a trunk and bury him someplace 50-60 miles away.
There’s lots of isolated pieces thrown up, which is fine, but when you try to piece them together, they don’t fit. I would think the delay in contacting any official services is a somewhat unusual. Unusual too that Liston’s wife was away from Sonny over Xmas. “Unusual” doesn’t necessarily equate to foul play, but still, these are questions you’d expect investigators to have asked…. A fight vs Chuvalo was also in the works, apparently already signed. If Liston did already have a substantial heroin habit - how far back did it go and what fights can we deduce that might’ve seen a somewhat impaired Liston due to drug usage…even if Sonny still looked quite impressive in some of those fights….
Btw, did we establish a motive or motives? It seems we might’ve drifted from that significant feature to a crime…. Could a motive have simply been Liston knowing too much and eventually becoming worth less than the risk of his having that knowledge?
Who knows? The man’s life was shrouded in shadiness going back to young adolescence. I suppose anything could have been the case. And I’m not completely ruling out murder as a possibility. But on the surface, an overdose or suicide sounds more likely to me. Especially considering that literally tons of celebrities had succumbed to the same fate in that era