Chatham County police are still waiting on toxicology reports to determine what caused the death of UNC assistant track coach and former Olympic gold medalist Antonio Pettigrew.

The toxicology report will come from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill. Police say findings are expected anywhere between 60 and 90 days after the autopsy was conducted — or anywhere from Oct. 9 to Nov. 8.

Pettigrew was found dead in his car in Chatham County early in the morning on Aug. 10. He was 42 years old.

Police responded to a call at 3:15 a.m. from fellow assistant coaches Raymond Langley and Peter Watson, who were concerned because Pettigrew had not shown up to work the day before.

After retracing Pettigrew’s route to work, Chatham County Sheriff’s deputies found him deceased in the backseat of his 2008 Dodge Aspen on a bridge on US-751 near Jordan Lake.

An open bottle of the sleep aid Unisom was found next to him in the car, and police say they are investigating the possibility of an intentional overdose. Sheriff’s deputies said a considerable number of pills had been removed from the bottle. No foul play is suspected.

“Antonio will be truly missed,” head track and field coach Dennis Craddock said in a statement on tarheelblue.com. “He was a great person and mentor to young people on and off the track. He meant a lot to our program. Antonio was a super coach and always told our athletes to ‘dream your dreams’ and go out and live those dreams.”

A graduate of St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, Pettigrew had spent three years as director of cross country and track and field at Raleigh’s Cardinal Gibbons High School before coming to UNC. At UNC, he specialized in coaching the team’s sprinters, hurdlers and relay teams.

In his professional career, Pettigrew won a gold medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics as a member of the U.S. 1,600-meter relay team. However, the International Olympic Committee stripped the team of its gold in 2008 after Pettigrew admitted during the trial of his former coach Trevor Graham to taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Despite Pettigrew’s stature in the track community, UNC senior David Zbierski said that during the two years he was a member of the Cardinal Gibbons track team, his coach was always humble.

“Everybody knew he had won a gold medal in the Olympics, but he never talked about it,” Zbierski said. “He never talked about what he had done; he just talked about what we needed to do to be better runners.”

Pettigrew is survived by his wife, Cassandra, and their son, Antonio Jr. Members of the UNC track team won’t be available for comment until the team has had a chance to discuss his death at a team meeting.

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.