from the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia:
Ledger family arrives home in private to bury very public sonFebruary 6, 2008
HEATH LEDGER'S family flew home to Perth yesterday for the film star's private funeral in the city where he grew up.
Flanked by police, Ledger's father, Kim, his mother, Sally Ledger Bell, and his sister Kate were among about 15 family members whisked out of Perth's domestic airport through a back entrance after an overnight flight from Los Angeles via Brisbane.
Ledger's relatives have spent the past week in the United States attending private memorial services after going to America to collect his body.
Details of Ledger's funeral remain secret and there was no immediate confirmation that the actor's body returned to Perth yesterday with his family.
But the family is expected this week to privately bury the 28-year-old actor in the family plot, near his grandparents, at Perth's Karrakatta Cemetery.
A passenger on the Brisbane to Perth flight yesterday said the Ledgers were diverted away from the airport's public entrance.
"They literally had police around them," the man said.
"They walked out of the plane, into the lounge and straight into the lift. That was it."
A convoy of three or four white cars left the back of the Perth terminal, drove onto the tarmac and away from the airport.
Soon after, one of the white cars arrived at Sally Ledger Bell's home in the Perth suburb of Applecross and was driven into a garage.
On the family's way out of the US, they had been escorted into the terminal at Los Angeles international airport by police, private security staff and Australian consular staff.
A photographer was pushed against the wall by a private minder as the family entered the crowded terminal.
Ledger was found dead in his rented Manhattan apartment on January 22. The cause of Ledger's death remains unknown, amid speculation he may have died from an accidental overdose of the prescription medicines found near his body.
The New York Chief Medical Examiner's office, responsible for Ledger's autopsy and deciphering the tests undertaken on his blood and tissue, is close to announcing the cause of death.
Other questions, such as the official estimated time Ledger died, will not not be made public.
There has been speculation since Ledger's body was discovered that he may have been saved if medical help was called earlier. Police found six different types of prescription drugs in the apartment, including pills to treat anxiety and insomnia.
AAP
This story was found at:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/02/05/1202090419896.html