Inquest Resumes Into Death of Anna Nicole Smith’s Son

The Bahama Journal

January 30, 2008

By TOSHEENA ROBINSON-BLAIR
A Coroner’s Court on Tuesday heard how pregnant U.S. reality T.V. star Anna Nicole Smith traveled with a satchel of prescription drugs – including methadone – a narcotic that two toxicologists’ reports indicated caused her son’s death in September 2006.

South Carolina real estate developer, Ford Shelley, told the court that when he and his wife unpacked Ms. Smith’s belongings when she came for a visit in May 2006, he saw a pharmaceutically labeled bottle of methadone belonging to the former Playboy Playmate.

He testified that she had the drug in both the tablet and liquid form and that Ms. Smith traveled with a Coach duffle bag filled with her “medication.”

Methadone is used to wean heroine addicts from their addiction. It is also used as a pain killer.

“I never saw Anna personally take any of the medication. She told us what she was taking. I was concerned because of her pregnancy,” Mr. Shelley told the court Tuesday.

He said the prescription drug labels were made out to more than three different aliases that Ms. Smith used.

Mr. Shelley and his father-in-law, G. Ben Thompson, have been involved in legal wrangling with the Anna Nicole Smith estate over ownership of the Eastern Road Horizon home where the former starlet stayed while she resided here.

The litigation began before Ms. Smith died almost a year ago.

Mr. Shelley also told the court about witnessing Ms. Smith’s long-term companion, Howard K. Stern, find two pills in the jeans of her son (Daniel Smith) shortly after he died.

“He walked into the bathroom and flushed the two pills. I asked Howard what he had done and Howard said he ‘took care of a problem’,” Mr. Shelley recalled.

He said as far as he knew Daniel was not suicidal.

The real estate developer testified that Ms. Smith had stayed at his home in Myrtle Beach, the Florida Keys and in The Bahamas to get away from the media.

He said Ms. Smith had “a high-risk pregnancy” and did not want to have to deal with her baby’s father, Larry Birkhead.

Mr. Shelley told the court that Daniel was “a brilliant” and “awesome” kid, who loved his mother, but couldn’t handle her fame.

He remembered Daniel as “being afraid of his own shadow” and said he would never kill himself.

Under cross-examination, Mr. Stern’s attorney Wayne Munroe painted Daniel as a young man who suffered from serious depression and had recently broken up with his girlfriend.

Mr. Shelley’s testimony regarding the likelihood of Daniel’s death being a suicide conflicted with the evidence given by Dr. Lee Hern of the Medical Examiner’s Office in Miami Dade County.

Dr. Hern told the court that, “clearly the methadone was the key in understanding this death.”

“But for the methadone he would not have died.”

Asked by Director of Public Prosecutions, Bernard Turner, whether he thought the drug consumption was deliberate or unintentional, in his expert opinion, Dr. Hern said there was “a high degree of probability” that it was “an intentional ingestion.”

Substantiating his claim he pointed to the large amount ingested over a short period of time.

However, he said in order to determine whether a suicide occurred officials would have to look at other things like statements to the family and the history of the deceased.

Mr. Munroe pointed out that Daniel was on prescription anti-depressants, was previously hospitalized for pain in July 2006 and was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit suffering from “serious depression.”

Daniel died in his mother’s Doctors Hospital room on Sunday, September 10, 2006 – three days after his mother gave birth to her second child.

Two toxicology reports – one produced by Dr. Hern’s office – indicated that Daniel had a combination of eight drugs in his system – a mixture of anti-depressants and stimulants.

Dr. Hern told the court that Daniel likely took the methadone tablets around 5:30am and 20 to 30 minutes later he would have become lethargic, enter into progressively deeper sleep and died two to three hours later.

Previous testimony from hospital officials indicated that a code blue alert went out for the young man around 9:40am.

http://www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=45&a=15605

Sooo, Stern is trying to set this up as a suicide. We have Shelley saying Stern took pills from Danny's pocket & flushed, that Daniel had recently been depressed and had a break up with a girl friend. The girl friend story I don't believe at all. If there were a girl friend, the media would have found her by now.

I'm starting to see the end. Stern WILL get off. The Bahama government won't want to spend the money it would take to try him on murder, since by now they can probably see the pattern of dragging each question out, postponing to the end. All of the primary players in the Marshall estate are now dead, but Stern is still carrying that suit on as well.