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9 drugs made a lethal cocktail

Anna Nicole Smith's death resulted from an accidental overdose while in a weakened state, the medical examiner says.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 27, 2007

DANIA BEACH - Anna Nicole Smith accidentally overdosed on at least nine prescription drugs after a miserable last few days in which she endured stomach flu, a 105-degree fever, sweating and an infection on her buttocks from repeated injections.

In a detailed autopsy report released Monday, a medical examiner noted the former Playboy playmate refused to go to a hospital three days before her Feb. 8 death in her room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Smith, 39, chose to ride out her illness in a hotel suite littered with pill bottles, soda cans, SlimFast, nicotine gum and an open box of Tamiflu tablets.

Broward County Medical Examiner Joshua Perper found that in the days leading up to her death, Smith had been taking large amounts of the seldom-prescribed sedative chloral hydrate, which also contributed to the 1962 overdose death of Smith's idol, Marilyn Monroe.

Police found no apparent signs of foul play, and the medical examiner also ruled Smith's death probably was not a suicide.

Rather, he said, Smith might have been simply unaware that the sedative could be fatal in combination with multiple other prescriptions she was taking in normal doses for anxiety, depression and insomnia.

"She may have taken the dosages she was accustomed to but succumbed because she was already weakened," Perper said in his report. "Miss Smith has a long history of prescription drug abuse and self-medicated in the past."

The recommended dose of chloral hydrate is one to two teaspoons prior to bed. Smith often took two tablespoons, and she sometimes drank directly from the bottle, the report said.

A statement issued by lawyers for Howard K. Stern, Smith's companion who was with her before her death, said that Stern and Smith's physician urged her to get emergency treatment but she refused because "she did not want the media frenzy that follows her."

"She refused to go to the hospital because she wanted to avoid media," said attorney Lilly Ann Sanchez in a statement. "Anna called the shots in Anna's life, and everyone close to her knows that."

Perper said Smith also had been on several antidepressant and antianxiety drugs and had been injecting herself with purported longevity medications, vitamin B-12 and growth hormone.

Smith arrived in Fort Lauderdale from the Bahamas on Feb. 5.

[Last modified March 27, 2007, 01:30:25]