Updated at 10:54 a.m., Friday, February 9, 2007
No illegal drugs found in Anna Nicole's hotel room
Associated Press
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Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward County medical examiner, said no illegal drugs were found in her room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, but he would not identify the prescription drugs.
There was no immediate indication of a drug overdose, Perper said, but officials "do not exclude any kind of contribution of medication to the death."
He called the process a "medical puzzle" and said it would take three to five weeks to conclude the investigation.
The autopsy was able to exclude any types of physical injury on the body of the 39-year-old former Playboy playmate and reality TV star, Perper said.
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.
Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger said nothing unusual was observed on hotel surveillance tapes, and there was no evidence to suggest a crime occurred.
Yesterday, authorities said, a private nurse found Smith unconscious in her room and called 911. A bodyguard performed CPR, Tiger said, but Smith was declared dead at a hospital.
New twists in case
Earlier today, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor said that he had a decade-long affair with Smith and may be her infant daughter's father.
The claim by Prince Frederick von Anhalt comes amid a paternity suit over Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn
The birth certificate lists Dannielynn's father as attorney Howard K. Stern, but former boyfriend Larry Birkhead is waging a legal challenge, saying he is the father.
"If you go back from September, she wasn't with one of those guys, she was with me," von Anhalt told The Associated Press. He said he would file a lawsuit if Dannielynn is turned over to Stern or Birkhead.
Meanwhile, a judge today refused to order an emergency DNA test on Smith's body as part of a paternity suit involving Dannielynn, but he ordered that the body be preserved until a hearing Feb. 20, attorneys said.
Experts say a custody decision could determine the child's inheritance.
'She had too many drugs'
Smith's mother blamed drugs for the former Playboy playmate's sudden death that ended an extraordinary tabloid life at just 39.
"I think she had too many drugs, just like Danny (Smith's late son)," her mother, Vergie Arthur, told ABC's "Good Morning America" today. "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."
Smith's attorney, Ron Rale, said the one-time reality TV star had been ill for several days with a fever and was still depressed over the death five months ago of her 20-year-old son from what a private medical examiner determined was a combination of methadone and two antidepressants.
DNA test denied
Birkhead's attorney Debra Opri had requested today's hearing to ask the judge to order that DNA be immediately collected from Smith.
"Nothing was granted. Nothing was denied," Opri said after the hearing. She said another hearing had been set for Feb. 20 and the judge had ordered Smith preserved until a decision was made.
The DNA is needed to connect Smith with Dannielynn "so that no one can switch the babies," Opri said.
She also asked the judge to take jurisdiction over the child, reported to be in the Bahamas with family friends of Smith, until her paternity is established. The judge did not rule.
Stern, Smith's most recent companion, is listed on Dannielynn's birth certificate as her father. If it is determined he is the biological father and if he was legally married to Smith — which has yet to be established — Stern, not Dannielynn, would likely inherit Smith's estate, experts say.
Decade-long affair
Von Anhalt, 59, and Gabor, who turned 90 on Tuesday, have been married for more than 20 years.
Gabor, a onetime sex symbol and star of such 1950s films as "Moulin Rouge" and "Queen of Outer Space," has been in declining health in recent years and suffered a stroke in 2005. She was partially paralyzed in a car crash in 2002.
Von Anhalt, who is Gabor's eighth husband, said he and Smith first met in the 1990s when Smith was still married to elderly oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II.
He said Smith approached him and Gabor at the Plaza Hotel in New York.
"She was a very big fan of Zsa Zsa and wanted to be like Zsa Zsa," he said. "She wanted to be a princess."
He said the two started an affair soon after, meeting over the years in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. For much of that time, he said, Smith urged him to make her a princess like his wife.
But short of divorcing the actress, he said the only solution would have been adopting Smith. Von Anhalt said he did consider that and even filled out adoption papers, but Gabor refused to sign them.
Edward Lozzi, who worked as Gabor's publicist during her celebrated "cop-slapping trial" in 1989, told the AP he doubted von Anhalt's claim, calling him a "chronic fabricator."
"There are some people who are married to famous people and take advantage of it," said Lozzi, who added that he himself dated Smith three times. He said he last spoke with her sometime during the past year.
Lozzi handled publicity for Gabor when she was arrested for slapping a Beverly Hills police officer who pulled her over for a traffic violation.
Von Anhalt's royal credentials have been the cause of speculation over the years. According to stories in the British press, he was born Robert Lichtenberg, the son of a German policeman, and bought his title after being adopted as an adult by a bankrupt daughter-in-law of the last kaiser.
He said he never admitted the affair to his wife, but that he's sure she knows. She would sometimes answer the phone when Smith called him, von Anhalt said.
"The next morning my wife would always ask 'Who are you talking to?' " he said. "'Oh Europe.' I always said it was Europe"
Von Anhalt expressed some regret about the affair, saying, "Men do things we shouldn't do."
"She was a very sexy woman," he added. "To have an affair with her is the top, you know."
Von Anhalt and Gabor were married in 1986. Some records list him as her ninth husband but one of those marriages was annulled.
