So Far No Foul Play Found In Smith's Death
Investigators disclosed Friday that they found prescription medicines but no illegal drugs in Anna Nicole Smith's hotel room, and said more tests will be necessary to determine the cause of her death.
The autopsy found no pills in her stomach, but officials were awaiting the results of toxicological tests that would indicate whether she had taken drugs, said Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward County medical examiner.
Perper said the autopsy was able to exclude any types of physical injury such as gunshot wound, asphyxiation or blunt trauma on the body of the 39-year-old former Playboy playmate, wealthy widow and reality TV star, who died Thursday after being found unconscious in a hotel room.
It revealed only "subtle findings" in the heart and gastrointestinal tract, and blood in her stomach from being in shock before she died, Perper said. Minor bruises on her back were from a previous fall in the bathroom, he said.
"There were no findings that would indicate continuing drug abuse," Perper said. He called the process a "medical puzzle" and said it would take three to five weeks to conclude the investigation.Attorney: Stern Has Custody Of Anna's Baby
"We did not see any intact pills in the stomach," he said.
Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger said investigators "found no illegal drugs, only prescription medicines" in Smith's hotel room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. Nothing unusual was observed on hotel surveillance tapes, and there was no evidence to suggest a crime occurred, he said.
On Thursday, a private nurse found Smith unconscious in her room and called 911, officials said. A bodyguard performed CPR, Tiger said, but Smith was declared dead at a hospital.
The issue of drugs is only one thread of a complex legal web surrounding Anna's death — and the future of five-month-old Dannielynn, her daughter and potential heir to a multi-million dollar fortune. It too is still tied up in court, CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella
.A judge refused to order an emergency DNA test on Smith's body in the paternity case of her daughter. The judge ordered her body kept until a hearing Feb. 20, attorneys said.
Three men claim to be the girl's father: attorney Howard K. Stern, Smith's most recent companion; Larry Birkhead, a former boyfriend; and, in another bizarre twist to the case, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, who claimed Friday that he might be the father of Smith's infant daughter. Experts say the custody decision could determine the child's inheritance but may also take years.
Through the '90s and into the 21st century, Smith was famous for being famous, a pop-culture punch line because of her up-and-down weight, her Marilyn Monroe looks, her exaggerated curves, her little-girl voice, her ditzy-blonde persona and her over-the-top revealing outfits.
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Recently, she lost a reported 69 pounds and became a spokeswoman for weight-loss supplement TrimSpa. In recent TV appearances, her speech was often slurred and critics said she seemed drugged-out.
Michael Scott, a former attorney for Smith in the Bahamas, said he believes that drugs "featured in her death." Smith's mother said Friday before the results of the autopsy were announced that she believes her daughter died of a drug overdose.
"I think she had too many drugs, just like Danny (Smith's late son)," her mother, Vergie Arthur, told ABC's "Good Morning America." "I tried to warn her about drugs and the people that she hung around with. She didn't listen."
"She was too drugged up," Arthur said. "By the last interview I saw of her, she was so wasted."
It will be weeks before anyone knows for sure what killed Smith, Cobiella reports.
Rale said he had talked to her on Tuesday or Wednesday, and she had flu symptoms and a fever and was still grieving over her son, who died Sept. 10.
His death came just a few days after Dannielynn's birth in the Bahamas from what a private medical examiner determined was a combination of methadone and two antidepressants.
Inside the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on Friday only a few guests sat at poker tables and slot machines in the casino. Seminole Indians who had gathered for the tribe's annual Pow Wow strolled through the hotel dressed in brightly colored traditional Indian skirts and shirts.
Smith was born Vickie Lynn Hogan on Nov. 28, 1967, in Houston, one of six children.
A high school dropout, she had Daniel at 17. She worked as a topless dancer at a strip club before she made the cover of Playboy magazine in 1992 and became its playmate of the year in 1993. She modeled for Guess jeans and in 1994 married 89-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II.
The stepson died June 20 at age 67, but the family said the court fight would continue.
Smith starred in her own reality TV series, "The Anna Nicole Show," in 2002-04 and also appeared in movies.
"She was a tragic figure," journalist Dominick Dunne, who writes often about the rich and famous, told The Showbuzz's Muni Jaitly after the news of Smith's death broke. "And you know what, she was likable, too."