Anna Nicole Sedated After Son's Death

(CBS/AP)  Anna Nicole Smith frantically tried to revive her stricken son and had to be sedated after he died, her attorney said Wednesday. Authorities termed the death "suspicious" and said criminal charges could be filed.

Daniel Smith died Sunday while visiting his mother, a reality TV star and former Playboy playmate, in her hospital room three days after she gave birth to a baby girl.

"The devastation and grief over Daniel's sudden death, coupled with the sedation has been so extreme that Anna Nicole experienced memory loss of the event," attorney Michael Scott said.

The chief inspector of the Bahamas coroner's office on Wednesday called the death of the 20-year-old Smith "suspicious" and a formal inquiry that could lead to criminal charges was scheduled for next month.

Police also revealed that a third person was in the hospital room at the time of the death.

But Scott said that the third person was another one of Anna Nicole Smith's attorneys, Howard K. Stern.

He said Anna Nicole Smith and Stern continued efforts to revive Smith even after he had been proclaimed dead by staff at Doctors Hospital in Nassau.

"Anna Nicole was so distraught at the loss of Daniel that she refused to leave his side and it was necessary to sedate her in order to check her out of the hospital," Scott read from a prepared statement.

He said she suffered memory loss and that it "was necessary for Howard to tell Anna again that Daniel had passed away," he added.

2Authorities said they believe they know what killed Smith but were waiting for a toxicology report to confirm the findings.

Her Majesty's Coroner Linda P. Virgill scheduled the inquest for the week of Oct. 23, saying it "is the right course of action." If jurors at the inquest decide a crime took place, the case would be sent to the attorney general's office, authorities said.

"What we are investigating presently is how, when and by what manner Daniel came to meet his death," Virgill told Brian Andrews with CBS' WFOR-TV in Ft. Lauderdale.

---

Watch WFOR-TV Report

---

"Whenever there is a suspicious death we would have an inquest to determine how the person died," Bradley Neely, chief inspector of the coroner's office, told Associated Press Television News.

Anna Nicole Smith, who went to the U.S. Supreme Court this year to sue for an inheritance, was in seclusion in the Bahamas with family and friends, Scott said. The identity of the newborn girl's father has not been publicly disclosed.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page »