Examiner ready but waiting to reveal what killed Anna Nicole
The office of Broward County Medical Examiner Joshua Perper said Wednesday that the doctor has determined the cause of Smith's death but will not be releasing his report until Florida police have concluded their own investigation into the matter, which could take anywhere from one to several more weeks.
Perper, who performed Smith's autopsy and was one of the key proponents of having the former Playboy Playmate embalmed sooner rather than later to prevent further decomposition, wants to make sure that his findings do not influence or conflict with the authorities' investigation, his office said.
Smith was found unconscious Feb. 8 in her room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, and pronounced dead hours later at nearby Memorial Regional Hospital.
Perper issued a death certificate last Wednesday, listing the cause of death as pending, as he was still waiting for various test results.
Various theories have been bandied about ever since as to what may have killed Smith, from pneumonia to lupus to methadone use to any number of fatal drug cocktails.
Pathologist Cyril Wecht, the private doctor Smith hired to autopsy her son Daniel, told Entertainment Tonight last week that he was fairly certain that methadone—which was found in Daniel's system after he died—was not involved, but that he suspected other substances could have been the culprit.
”It is possible that there may have been other drugs involved, any combination she was taking, she was ill," Wecht said.
TMZ.com reported Tuesday that Smith's bodyguard, Big Moe, told the Seminole Police Department that Smith was on "heavy doses" of prescription drugs and antibiotics the day she died.
The National Enquirer reported a week ago that Smith was suffering from a severe case of pneumonia when she died and that, despite the lack of a final toxicology report, prescription painkillers she had been taking masked the effects but made her overall condition worse.
Meanwhile, according to Perper, Smith's autopsy showed no drugs in her stomach, although prescription drugs were found in her hotel room. Perper also found no signs of blunt-force trauma, asphyxiation or other physical trauma.
Smith was finally laid to rest Friday in the Bahamas after a weeks-long court battle over who was entitled to possession of her remains—mother Virgie Arthur, who wanted Smith buried in her hometown of Houston, or companion Howard K. Stern, who said that he would be honoring his late paramour's wishes by burying her next to Daniel at the Lakeview Memorial Gardens and Mausoleum in Nassau.
Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin eventually awarded custody of Smith's body to Richard Milstein, who had been appointed guardian ad litem of Smith's infant daughter Dannielynn, and Milstein agreed to transport the body to the Bahamas.
Arthur appealed Seidlin's decision, but after an appellate court ruled in Milstein's favor, she chose not to take her chances with the Florida Supreme Court. The former police officer did, however, try to prevent the burial on Friday, but the Bahamas Supreme Court shot her down.
The Bahamian courts have not yet issued a response to a request from Billy Wayne Smith—Daniel's father and Smith's ex-husband—for permission to have his son's remains exhumed and moved to Texas.
So, now that Smith has been buried—next to her beloved son, as she presumably wished, considering she bought multiple burial plots—and a cause of death has been determined (if not yet reported), the next development in this sordid saga will most likely concern paternity and/or guardianship of Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, who has been at the center of a custody battle for close to the entire length of her six-month existence.
Dannielynn is currently in the Bahamas with Stern, who is listed as the father on her birth certificate.
Gerlene Gibson, the nanny who has been helping Stern care for the baby, told People this week that the child is growing and "doing fine."
"She's rolling over, and she's trying to pull herself up. She plays peek-a-boo. She likes all her toys. She has a bouncy seat. She has something that looks like a merry-go-round that has toys all around."
"Only thing I can see in her is Anna's smile," Gibson, who was looking after Dannielynn when Smith made her final trip to Florida, said. "She has her mother's mouth and I think she has her mother's eyes as well."
Which doesn't exactly help determine who her daddy is, does it?
(Gibson also happens to be the mother of former Bahamian Immigration Minister Shane Gibson, who resigned last month after a photograph was published showing him and Smith cuddling in bed, albeit fully clothed.)
Smith's ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead filed a paternity suit in October and is still waiting on that DNA sample. His attorney, Debra Opri, told TMZ.com Monday that, despite rumors of a possible settlement, there will be no negotiation between her client and Stern.
Rather, the only thing subject to debate is "how fast [Stern] will produce the child for a DNA test and how quickly he will allow that child to go to California with her real father."
But in case Birkhead's and Stern's intentions are too pure for mainstream tastes and it wasn't weird enough when Zsa Zsa Gabor's eighth husband and Smith's former trainer came forward as possible fathers, leave it to O.J. Simpson to heighten the discomfort factor surrounding Dannielynn even more.
Documentary filmmaker Norm Pardo, who shot 70 hours of footage of Simpson between 2000 and 2005, told the New York Post this week that Simpson had joked to him that he "knew Anna Nicole pretty well" and "he said he had slow-moving sperm, and he might be the father."
But, Simpson added (according to Pardo), he hoped that the baby wasn't his, because then Fred Goldman might try to take her from him.
Well, at least everyone else involved in the Anna Nicole Smith paternity battle now looks classy in comparison.
