A newly unsealed autopsy report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has revealed previously undisclosed details regarding the death of Katherine Short, the 42-year-old daughter of actor Martin Short, including a prior suicide attempt and the specific circumstances under which her body was recovered.
The documents reveal that Katherine Short had been diagnosed with severe depression and borderline personality disorder, including a prior 2017 suicide attempt involving pills.
According to the report, authorities also recovered an undisclosed suicide note at the scene.
The newly released paperwork outlines the timeline leading to the discovery of her body in her Hollywood Hills home on February 23.
Martin Short requested a friend perform a welfare check after failing to make contact with his daughter for 24 hours.
Upon arrival, the friend discovered a note taped to Katherine Short’s locked bedroom door and alerted emergency services. Los Angeles police officers subsequently forced entry into the bedroom, where they located her dead in bed with a Glock 19 9mm pistol beneath her chest.
The medical examiner officially finalized the manner of death as suicide from a gunshot wound to the head.
During an interview in early May 2026, Martin Short described the loss of his daughter as “a nightmare for the family.”
Martin Short, who is also father to two sons, Oliver and Henry Short, noted that “she did the best she could until she couldn’t.”
In a separate interview, Martin Short drew a correlation between psychiatric illness and terminal physical conditions, comparing his daughter’s struggles to the death of his wife Nancy Dolman in 2010 from ovarian cancer.
Martin Short recalled that his wife’s final words to him as emergency personnel entered her room were, “Martin, let me go.”
Sixteen years later, he observed, “Katherine was saying: ‘Dad, let me go.'”
“I don’t see any difference between mental illness as a disease and cancer as a disease,” Martin Short said. “In some cases, both are terminal. And in some cases, both are survivable.”
Short later reiterated the understanding that mental health and cancer, like his wife’s, are both diseases and that in some cases they are terminal.
He added, “I am trying to head toward the light.”
Before her death, Katherine Short worked as a licensed clinical social worker, operating a private therapy practice and providing community outreach, family support groups, and part-time psychotherapy at Amae Health.
She completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology and gender sexuality studies at New York University in 2006 and later graduated with a master’s degree in social work from the University of Southern California in 2010.
