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A shocking crash, court battles, autopsy findings: There was no immediate rest for Anne Heche's family after the actress' tragic death a year ago.
In August 2000, Anne Heche got in the car and thought she was driving toward "a world that I thought I needed to escape to in order to find love."
But, describing the night she ended up hospitalized after her very public breakup with Ellen DeGeneres as a turning point in her lifelong struggle with mental illness, Heche told Barbara Walters in a 2001 interview she had realized then that this world had it all.
"I could not be more elated with my life," Heche concluded.
When she died a year ago at only 53, the rush was on to honor the award-winning actress whose personal struggles so often eclipsed her professional accomplishments while she was alive.
How did Anne Heche die?
On Aug. 5, 2022, Heche was behind the wheel of her Mini Cooper when she crashed into a house in the west Los Angeles neighborhood of Mar Vista shortly before 11 a.m.
A fire broke out and Heche wasn't freed from the wreckage until 11:49 a.m., according to L.A. City Fire Department records and audio recordings obtained by KNBC.
"Given the heavy fire and smoke conditions, it wasn't that you could clearly see into the vehicle or clearly be able to access it," LAFD Deputy Chief Richard Fields told the NBC Los Angeles I-Team, explaining why it took 20 minutes before firefighters could even start pulling the car from the burning house. "Heavy smoke conditions, heavy fire conditions, which makes it very difficult for us to just see each other on the inside of a working structure fire."