Ay
Egyptologist Bob Brier suggested that Ay murdered Tutankhamun in order to usurp the throne, a claim which was based on X-ray examinations of the body done in 1968. He also alleged that Ankhesenamun and the Hittite prince she was about to marry were also murdered at his orders. This murder theory was not accepted by all scholars, and more detailed CT scans of the mummy undertaken by National Geographic (published in late 2005) suggested that Tutankhamun did not die from a blow to his head as Brier had theorized. The "National Geographic" forensic researchers instead presented a new theory that Tutankhamun died from an infection caused by a badly broken leg since he is often portrayed as walking with a cane due to spina bifida, a hereditary trait in his family on his father's side. The bone fragments found in Tutankhamun's skull were most likely the result of post-mortem damage caused by Howard Carter's initial examination of the boy king "because they show no evidence of being inundated with the embalming fluid used to preserve the pharaoh for the afterlife". However, Brier has stated that the bone fragment in the skull is not relevant to the issue of whether Tutankhamun was murdered, acknowledging that it was likely caused by the embalmers. The evidence Brier presents for the murder is a dark spot on the base of the skull, indicating a blow to the head. Dr. Gerald Irwin agrees with Brier on this point.
Tutankhamun
In June 2010, German scientists said that they believed there was evidence that he had died of sickle cell disease. Other experts, however, rejected the hypothesis of homozygous sickle cell disease based on survival beyond the age of 5 and the location of the osteonecrosis, which is characteristic of Freiberg-Kohler syndrome rather than sickle-cell disease. Research conducted in 2005 by archaeologists, radiologists, and geneticists, who performed CT scans on the mummy, found that he was not killed by a blow to the head, as previously thought. New CT images discovered congenital flaws, which are more common among the children of incest. Siblings are more likely to pass on twin copies of deleterious alleles, which is why children of incest more commonly manifest genetic defects. It is suspected he also had a partially cleft palate, another congenital defect.