Contrary to a Lawrence County coroner's presumption, a heart attack did not kill Joseph Tomei two years ago.

How the 59-year-old machinist died seems to be a mystery, said his son, Jason Tomei, who obtained a court order to exhume the body and have a belated autopsy conducted by Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, the noted forensic pathologist.

"The autopsy showed that he didn't have a heart attack, no aneurysm, no stroke. Basically there were no triggers," Jason Tomei, of Las Vegas, said last week.

Jason Tomei, who paid Dr. Wecht $10,000 for the autopsy, would not make the report public. He said he and his lawyer, Tom Earhart, first wanted to speak to Dr. Wecht about the details.

"It's not 100 percent clear from the report how he died. We want to get with Dr. Wecht for a clarification," Mr. Earhart said.

Jason Tomei, 36, and his brother, Joe, 31, sued their stepmother, Edith, to force the exhumation and autopsy. Edith Tomei, 63, eventually relented, but not until the brothers created a Web site filled with innuendo about their father's death. They have suggested he could have been poisoned.

Joseph Tomei died in his home in Shenango on June 13, 2006. He had undergone quadruple heart bypass surgery in April 2005. Given that medical history, his sons said they may have told the coroner that an autopsy was not necessary.

So the coroner released the body for entombment without an autopsy. A heart attack was listed as the presumed cause of death.

Soon after, the brothers changed their minds about an autopsy, but Mr. Tomei's body was in a mausoleum by then.

The cause of Mr. Tomei's death is just one part of the case. Money is the other.

The sons and Edith Tomei are waging a lawsuit over who should receive Mr. Tomei's inheritance, initially estimated at $250,000.

"I am afraid the economy may have diminished it" because of the sliding stock market, said Pete Horne, Edith Tomei's lawyer.

She and the brothers are to be in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court on Aug. 13 for a conference with Judge John Hodge, who authorized the exhumation. Dr. Wecht's report probably will be sought then by Edith Tomei.

Mr. Horne said the sons had withheld the autopsy results but floated the idea of settling the case without a trial.

"My client, I believe, is in the driver's seat," he said.

Because she was married to Joseph Tomei, she is in line to receive most of his inheritance, he said.

Jason Tomei, though, said his father and stepmother were estranged for at least 18 months. They were married for more than a decade, but the brothers say the union was broken almost from the start.

Mr. Tomei obtained a protection order against Edith Tomei in 1996, alleging threats of violence and arson. The order expired the following year. Court records show that Mr. Tomei filed for divorce, but never followed through.

Mr. Tomei worked for VEKA Inc., where he accumulated about $175,000 in a retirement plan, Mr. Earhart said. He had another $80,000 in a life insurance policy that did not list a beneficiary, Mr. Earhart said.

He said the brothers are the rightful heirs because Edith Tomei split from Mr. Tomei long before his death.

But Edith Tomei, through her lawyer, said the sons are fabricating the story of a broken marriage so they can take all the money for themselves.

"The question is whether the Tomei children can show abandonment, which is a difficult burden," Mr. Horne said.