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Coroner's Inquest Bahamas: Daniel Wayne Smith - Late Son Of Former Playboy Playmate And Guess Model Anna Nicole Smith (Deceased): "red frothy material" found in Smith’s lungs were "a clear sign of an overdose."
Related to country: Bahamas

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Officer Testifies Gibson, Wife Were In Hospital After Smith Died:
By Tosheena Robinson-Blair -
Nassau, Bahamas:


Former Immigration Minister Shane Gibson and his wife were in the hospital room where a sobbing Anna Nicole Smith lay over the body of her son Daniel Smith last September, a police investigator testified on Tuesday in the coroner’s inquest into the younger Smith’s death.

The inquest is being held more than a year after Daniel Smith died at Doctors Hospital where he was visiting his mother who had given birth to his baby sister.

Frederick Taylor, an inspector at the Central Detective Unit [CDU] of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, said he arrived at Doctors Hospital on September 10, 2006 to find 20-year-old Smith lying on a bed, with his mother lying at his feet crying.

Mr. Taylor told the court that Mr. Gibson and his wife; Anna Nicole’s companion, Howard K. Stern and emergency room physician Dr James Iferenta were all in the room at the time of his arrival. He did not specify what time he arrived.

Mr. Gibson had come under fire for his handling of the permanent residency application of Anna Nicole Smith. That furor heightened when photographs emerged of the two in warm embraces on a bed.

Mr. Gibson had always maintained that there was nothing intimate about his relationship with Ms. Smith and that she was merely a close friend of the family.

The debacle eventually led to Mr. Gibson’s resignation from the cabinet.

Chief Superintendent Quinn McCartney, forensic scientist on the police force, also testified.

He told the court that two pills found on a hospital bed were determined to be a muscle relaxant and methadone. Another witness had testified to seeing Mr. Stern in that bed on an earlier occasion.

The court heard Monday how eight different drugs – a mixture of stimulants and depressants – were found in Smith’s system. One of them was methadone, a drug used to treat heroine addicts.

Drug Overdose Theory

"It’s quite possible that he could have come here with a cumulative build-up of methadone in his body? Theoretically, he could have come here with toxic levels in his body?" Coroner William Campbell asked Mr. McCartney before reading an advisory from the Federal Drug Administration [FDA] about the drugs’ harmful side effects.

Mr. McCartney admitted it was quite "possible."

He pointed out that in addition to the .790 milligrams of methadone found in Smith’s bloodstream there were also 22 milligrams found in his stomach that suggested it would have been recently consumed prior to death.

The coroner estimated that if Smith took a 5 milligram or 10 milligram methadone pill every eight hours, he would have had to consume more than 20 to account for the significant level of methadone in his blood stream and stomach.

Mr. McCartney agreed.

In his questioning of the witness, Wayne Munroe, the attorney representing Ms. Stern, attempted to show that it was questionable that Smith died from a drug overdose.

"There is a conception that there were a number of drugs in very high concentration; some bring you down and some bring you up…What was described here is drug interaction and not a drug overdose?" he queried.

Mr. Munroe suggested that caffeine from the Coca-Cola soda found in the hospital room might have sped up the reaction of the drug and pointed to one study that said grapefruit juice would raise methadone levels in the blood.

Previously, the court heard that Daniel Smith had taken methadone as a painkiller for his back and took stimulants for his depression.

Mr. McCartney said further study was needed. He said even if there were no other drugs present in Smith’s bloodstream "the methadone level alone would be enough to set off alarms."

He added that the "red frothy material" found in Smith’s lungs were "a clear sign of an overdose."

Police Corporal Yvette Deveaux also testified about 26 tablets found in Smith’s suitcase. Ms. Deveaux also told the court that Nurse Patricia Laing gave her two pills and told her she retrieved them from Smith’s hand.

However, Inspector Taylor testified that Laing said she had gotten the tablets from another nurse.

Last month, Nurse Nadine Carey told the court that she found two pills on the bed that other witnesses testified was occupied by Mr. Stern.

On Tuesday, the court also viewed digital images obtained from the hospital’s surveillance cameras of Mr. Stern and Daniel Smith’s arrival to the hospital on September 9, and Smith accompanying his mother, Anna Nicole, around the maternity ward.

The coroner’s inquest resumes at 10am today.

12 December 2007

December 12, 2007 | 9:12 PM Comments  0 comments

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