Death of Anna Nicole Smith's son wasn't accidental? · 2008-01-31 19:06
Anna Nicole Smith's son died of a huge overdose, an inquest heard yesterday ??“ but it may not have been suicide.
Daniel Smith, 20, had so much of painkiller methadone in his system, it could not have been "recreational", expert Dr Lee Hern said.
He suggested "intentional ingestion", but told the hearing there was no evidence that Daniel had wanted to die.
Dr Hern, of the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office, found a blood methadone concentration of 0.74mg per litre. Just 0.15mg could be fatal, The Sun reports.
Daniel could have taken as many as eight soluble tablets in water, which would "camouflage" their strong taste.
The Nassau, Bahamas, inquest into the troubled son of Anna Nicole Smith revealed that Daniel Smith struggled to break free from his mother's image, OK! Magazine informs.
Ford Shelley, a friend of the family, testified that Daniel "wanted to break free. He loved his mother, but didn't want to be known as her son."
Shelley described Smith as a shy young man who was "afraid of his own shadow," and denied Smith's drug problem, saying that he "couldn't even hold his liquor."
According to TMZ.com, Daniel Smith died in September of 2006 while visiting his mother in the Bahamas after she delivered his half sister Dannielynn. A coroner's inquest into his death was requested by the Bahamian government, although an independent autopsy commissioned by Daniel's family determined the cause of death to be an accidental overdose.
Anna Nicole Smith, 39, died of an accidental OD in February 2007.
The Nassau inquest continues.
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