The late pop icon Whitney Houston will be buried on February 17 in her hometown of Newark, New Jersey, on the US East Coast.

According to BBC, Houston's body was released to her family late on Monday morning and was flown from Van Nuys Airport in the Los Angeles area east to New Jersey. A gold hearse took her body from Teterboro airport to a funeral home in Newark, reports say.

Born in Newark, Whitney Houston began her singing career as a child at the city's New Hope Baptist Church. On Monday, mourners left tributes, including flowers, balloons and candles, alongside the church's fence.

The 48-year-old singer was found underwater and unconscious on Saturday in a bath at a hotel in Beverly Hills, police said.

In a news conference on Monday, a Beverly Hills police spokesman informed fire department officials were told the singer was found unresponsive on Saturday morning. He played down reports that prescription drugs might have been involved in her death.

No criminal probe is under way, police stated, but LA's coroner said her room did contain some prescription drugs.

Toxicology tests are under way after an autopsy on Sunday.

The authorities say it may be up to eight weeks before they can confirm the cause of death.

Houston was one of the world's best-selling artists from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, but her career was overshadowed by drug use and a turbulent marriage to singer Bobby Brown.

She was found in her hotel room just hours before she was supposed to appear at a gala before the Grammy awards show. At the Grammy awards ceremony on Sunday she was remembered by the music world.

Sales of Houston's albums have soared on both sides of the Atlantic following her death in Los Angeles.

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