The Anna Nicole death saga is as complicated and fucked up as one would expect given the subject. There are all sorts of rumors, angles, and legal issues to the story that it’s hard to determine what’s relevant enough to cover. I’ll try to break it down by subject and get to as much as I can. The more I hear about it, the more it seems like Anna died from natural causes hastened by a lot of booze. It seems like drugs are involved, of course, but the coroner says no pills were found in her stomach or the initial blood work. It’s hard to judge if Anna was a victim of foul play, as several people had something to gain if she died.

Even more people are coming out of the woodwork with their own claims about Dannielynn’s paternity, which may seem preposterous at first glance, but with Anna you just never know. And of course everyone wants a piece of that little girl, whether they’re a potential father, friend, or relative.

Autopsy
In terms of the autopsy, the death is still unexplained. The coroner says that there was no evidence of trauma or asphixiation and that no drugs were found in Anna’s stomach or in the preliminary blood tests. He doesn’t rule out drugs as a cause or contributing factor in her death, though. He speculates that Anna died from natural causes, drugs or a combination of both, but says he won’t know until the results are final in 3-5 weeks. (The CNN report said that toxicology results were pending, while a FOX news story claims that initial blood work found no drugs. I think these two accounts are compatible.)

There were said to be “subtle findings” with her heart and GI tract, but it is unknown exactly what this entails and it does not seem to be significant enough to have caused her death.

Drugs in the Room
While CNN reports that only prescription drugs were in the room, they say there were a lot of them and that some were in Anna’s lawyer/lover Howard K. Stern’s name. This is to be expected if he was staying there too, but it still sounds suspicious to me.

Authorities investigating Smith’s death retrieved a “large amount” of prescription medicine from her hotel room, law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation said.

The prescription drugs were in the name of Smith’s lawyer and boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, and included Valium and antibiotics, a law enforcement source said. Over-the-counter drugs, including cold and flu medicines, also reportedly were found.

Star paints a grimmer picture of the drugs in Anna’s room, and claims a person on the scene says it looked like a pharmacy and that there was a lot of the heroine substitute methadone:

Star has learned exclusively that a source on the scene of Anna Nicole Smith’s medical crisis at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel described her hotel room as “walking into a pharmacist’s shop. There were bottles and bottles of pills!”

The source claims that prescription medication found at the scene included the stimulant Provigil, the anti-anxiety drug Xanax, the powerful pain reliever Vicodin, and the morphine-like pain reliever Methadone — “a lot of Methadone,” the source reports.

This would not be surprising considering that Anna’s ex Larry Birkhead claimed she was addicted to methadone and that methadone was said to be in her son Daniel’s system when he died of a drug interaction last year.

Anna’s Last Days and her Private Nurse
Anna was seen pounding back double shots by patrons at the bar of her hotel the night she died. She got so wasted she had to be carried back to her room by her bodyguard and Howard K. Stern.

The last person who interviewed her, Mark Steines of Entertainment Tonight, said that on Tuesday she had a temperature of 105 and was put in an ice bath. On Wednesday her temperature was said to be down, and she slipped in the bathtub and hit her head.

The coroner did not mention a bump on the head, but said she did have a small bruise on her back that was thought to have been caused by the bathtub fall.

I have not been able to find information about why she had a personal nurse apart from the fact that she’d been having “flu like symptoms” in the week before her death. I have not heard anything about a chronic illness or disorder that would call for a nurse.

Paternity of Dannielynn
While the psuedo-prince husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor has tossed his hat into the ring, claiming he’s the father of Dannielynn because he was shagging Anna at the time of conception, a fourth option beyond Birkhead and Stern ups the craziness factor several fold. Anna’s half-sister, Donna Hogan, claims in a book manuscript that Anna’s long-dead husband, billionaire J. Howard Marshall, could be the father of Dannielynn because Anna “always talked of freezing [Howard’s] sperm”

Larry Birkhead’s suit claiming paternity of Dannielynn continues, and Anna’s remains have been ordered to be preserved until February 20th for another ruling in the case. It is thought that DNA may be needed from Anna’s body, but a request for immediate DNA samples from Anna has been denied.

Custody of Dannielynn
Five month-old Dannielynn is being cared for by Anna’s companion Howard K. Stern’s mother and sister in the Bahamas. The infant was not with Anna when she died, and was back in the Bahamas being watched by a friend of Anna’s.

It is thought that Anna Nicole’s mother, who never hesitated to talk smack about her when she was alive and is now saying that drugs caused her daughter’s death, is seeking custody of Dannielyn. She is in the Bahamas, and was seen leaving a police station shortly after her arrival.

Larry Birkhead’s request for immediate custody of Dannielynn following Anna’s death has been denied by an LA judge.

Anna’s Will
Anna’s former lawyer, Howard K. Stern, is the executor of her will, which was drawn up before Daniel died and names her now-deceased son Daniel as her heir. It is thought that Dannielynn now stands to inherit Anna’s tabloid earnings, which would explain the many people who are vying for custody and/or paternity of the infant.

TMZ cites a legal expert that says that it will all be complicated, of course, and that it depends on the paternity suit and if Howard and Anna’s weird commitment ceremony is found to be legally binding. They also say that Stern is not legally allowed to inherit everything while being the executor of the will.

I tried to look this up, but it’s confusing and I’m not sure if Stern can appoint someone else to be the executor of the will, unless the will specifically states so. I think he can say he no longer wants to be the executor, although it seems like the court will name someone if there’s no provision for it in the will. Since he probably wrote the will there must be a loophole in there somewhere. If you have a legal background, please let me know if I’m correct about how this works.

Anna’s bullshit past and fixation on fame
Anna Nicole’s mother said that her daughter fabricated a hard-knock past in order to make her life story more sensational. She says Anna comes from a middle class family in Houston, Texas, not a bunch of poor hicks in the countryside as she claimed.

She said Anna told her she would do whatever it took to get press, and that she said ‘Mom, if my name is out there in the news, good or bad, doesn’t matter, good or bad, I make money, so I’m going to do whatever it takes.” Indeed it seems like she took that promise a little too far.

Here is Anna in 1993 as the voluptuous face of Guess jeans. Thanks to marlies84 on Oh No They Didn’t! for finding these.

WCBS New York reports

while searching Anna Nicole Smith’s hotel room late Thursday afternoon investigators found two key pieces of evidence — illegal narcotics and prescription medications.

Now, a toxicology report will determine whether one of these drugs or a combination of both substances contributed to her death. An autopsy is scheduled for Friday morning in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Smith, 39, collapsed and was unresponsive while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino, said the attorney, Ron Rale. She was rushed to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Fla.

The press generally seems to be treating her death as a final sad chapter. There’s a lot still up in the air … the paternity suit from ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead over her new born daughter; the authorities in the Bahamas are about to open an investigation into her young son’s overdose death next month; the family of elderly billionaire J. Howard Marshall II, continue their legal battle over Anna Nicole’s inheritance of his money.

Those are just the big one’s … and how they will progress, cross-over, be stalled and be complicated by her death awaits to be seen. The conspiracy theories are already in progress. They certainly have plenty to work with … its going to be a bit of an industry in the coming months.

Estranged from most of her family and surrounded by a randomly assembled reality tv menagerie these last years: the saddest footnote comes from an interview shot about ten days in her home in the Bahamas

“Everyone in my life has stabbed me in my back, or said something bad about me or sued me,” she told The Insider.

There’s no arguing with that

via WCBS
pics via KBTV4

Update by Celebitchy: Apparently only prescription drugs were found in Anna Nicole’s room and earlier reports that there were narcotics in the room were false. The coroner reports that she either died from natural causes, drugs, or a combination of both. Final results from the autopsy are expected in 4-6 weeks.

Anna Nicole Smith lived her tragic life in front of the cameras. She launched her career with an appearance on the cover of Playboy (after undoubtedly doing some favors for Hugh), was the trashy face of Guess jeans, starred in on a goofy reality show on E!, sold photos of her son’s last days, and even aired the video footage of her C-Section. Anna capitalized on her questionable fame by cashing in our interest in her car crash life.

She was working the afternoon strip shift when a then-married Smith met her husband, octogenarian billionaire J. Howard Marshall, in 1991. She divorced her other husband in 1993, married Marshall in mid 1994, and when he died just 13 months after they were married, she launched a prolonged legal battle for his estate that still continues to this day.

She had various well documented legal trouble, the most bothersome of which may have been her ex’s fight to establish paternity of her baby daughter, Dannielynn. The deadline for Anna to submit the infant to paternity testing had already passed, with Anna’s lawyer’s attempting a legal shell game to delay the tests. It must have weighed on her heavily.

The investigation by Bahamian authorities into her creepy lawyer’s role in the death of her son was about to start, and it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that she was worried about what they might find.

Anna was widely rumored to be addicted to the heroin substitute methadone, and a similar kind of drug interaction that was responsible for her son Daniel’s death may be to blame for her demise.

Anna may have even been pregnant when she met a suspicious end in a Florida hotel room. She made a joke on Entertainment Tonight that she might be pregnant, and said “oh, did I say that?” afterwards. She mentioned that creepy hanger-on Howard K Stern wanted another baby, a boy, but that she wasn’t ready yet.

Was Anna pregnant at the time of her death? Was she the victim of foul play? We’ll have to wait and see with this story, and with all the drama in Anna’s life there are sure to be plenty of twists and turns to come.

Here are our last few articles about Anna, and some random pictures of her. The ones of Howard K Stern feeding her a drink are the most recent. RIP Anna.
Anna Nicole made her filthy bed
Anna Nicole is pimping out her baby
Anna Nicole Smith got a new tattoo
Anna Nicole can’t flash her crotch, so she claims to be preggers again
Anna Nicole Smith’s C-Section (severe warning)
Anna Nicole is as annoying as Madonna

This is just horrible news. Anna Nicole Smith has died at the age of 39 after collapsing in her hotel room in Hollywood, Florida.

The blond bombshell — who recently became tabloid fodder all over again after the sudden, apparently drug-related death of her 20-year-old son — was found unresponsive while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, said her attorney, Ron Rale. She was rushed to a hospital.

Edwina Johnson, chief investigator of the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office, said the cause of death is under investigation and an autopsy will be done on Friday………..

Meanwhile, the paternity of her now 5-month-old daughter remained a matter of dispute. The birth certificate lists Dannielynn’s father as attorney Howard K. Stern, Smith’s most recent companion. Smith’s ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead was waging a legal challenge, saying he was the father.

Debra Opri, the attorney who filed his paternity suit, said Birkhead “is devastated. He is inconsolable, and we are taking steps now to protect the DNA testing of the child. The child is our number one priority.”

I really hope she didn’t kill herself. After all, she had a beautiful baby girl who counted on her, I can’t imagine how hard it’s going to be for Dannielynn to grow up without her. I hope the two daddies involved in the paternity suit find a civilized way to solve their issues and help Dannielynn have a chance at a normal life.

Note by Celebitchy: Thanks so much to Chic Mommy for covering this. I am on vacation in Spain with my family until Monday, and do have internet access from our room. This is incredibly shocking news. Like a lot of you, my first thought was that Howard K. Stern killed her to cash in on some kind of insurance and to avoid being revealed as a hanger-on who isn’t the father of Dannielynn. It’s possible that she died of a drug overdose or natural causes, we’ll have to wait for the results. There’s also a suspect rumor that her deceased son is the father of her baby, but I doubt that’s true. If there is any merit to that rumor, it would certainly give her motive to commit suicide.

Here are pictures from Anna’s commitment ceremony to Howard.

Trashtastic Anna Nicole has more well-deserved legal trouble in a month than most of us see in a lifetime. She has a newborn baby she claims was spawned by her parasitic lawyer turned boyfriend, Howard K Stern, who most likely provided her teenaged son with the heroin substitute that killed him in a lethal drug interaction. Stern is under investigation for the death by the Bahamian government, where he and Anna fled in a ploy to deny the other guy paternity rights.

There is witness who claims that Stern gave Anna’s son the dose of methadone that killed him, and that he saw Stern flush the rest of the drugs down the toilet after Daniel died. Details will supposedly come out at an inquest on March 26, where more than 20 witnesses will be called to testify.

Now the self-proclaimed father of Anna’s baby, Larry Birkhead, has a legal case ordering her to submit to paternity testing by today, January 23rd. Anna’s desperate lawyers are trying all sorts of legal shell games to avoid the test, even though Howard K Stern told Larry King that Anna would submit to it “if legally compelled.”

Anna is also being sued by her former lawyers for non-payment of their massive bills in a case that claims she habitually avoids paying her creditors.

Plus she’s about to get evicted from her Bahamian home for failing to pay rent. Anna says the rich guy who owns the home, who she once tried to pin paternity of the baby on but failed when she was told he was sterile, gave her the house as a gift, while he says Anna’s a dirty squatter.

Bitch is about to get owned, and she still doesn’t have her grubby paws on the 1/2 a billion she thinks she’s owed for jerking off an 89 year-old man for a year.

Anna Nicole ran into Hulk Hogan at a boxing match in Florida recently. She attended the match with her parasitic partner, Howard K. Stern

Anna Nicole Smith is selling lots of pictures of little Dannielynn to the tabloids, angering the baby’s self-proclaimed biological father, Larry Birkhead. She’s using the money she’s earned by pimping out the baby to buy a house in the bahamas.

It’s not surprising she’s doing this, considering that she held a fake wedding with her lawyer before she could be bothered to bury her 19 year-old son, who died of a drug overdose shortly after the baby was born:

“After she sold footage and photos of the birth to a TV show, she starting seeing that child as a cash cow,” says the insider. “Howard K. Stern [Smith’s lawyer and the man whom she claims is the father of the baby] takes the pictures and they sell them to the highest bidder.” The house in the Bahamas could help Smith maintain residency there, since she’s reportedly being booted from her current house in the island nation, where she’s been living — some say to avoid paternity testing.

The situation has Larry Birkhead — the photographer who says that he, not Stern, is the baby’s father — “outraged” and “disgusted.”

“I’m outraged that they’re trying to pimp my daughter,” Birkhead tells The Scoop. “If Anna wants to sell pictures of herself, that’s one thing, but to conveniently put my daughter in every single photo to up the ante is sick and disgusting. And what’s even more disgusting is that someone would buy them because they are financially assisting someone who’s stockpiling money in an attempt to keep my child from me.”

Anna is legally required to undergo paternity testing for the baby by January 23rd, but it is thought that she will go to any means necessary to avoid the tests. She claims that Howard K. Stern is the baby’s father, and if Birkhead is proved to have fathered Dannielynn she stands to lose some of her ill-gotten gains.

Anna Nicole sported two new tattoos on her back, featuring her pictures of her posing with her deceased son on one shoulder and her baby daughter on the other.

Trashtastic Anna Nicole Smith and her weird boyfriend/lawyer Howard K. Stern took in the Samuel Peter vs. James Toney boxing match Saturday night in Florida. Smith and Stern are stateside by court order, and must submit Anna’s baby to paternity testing by January 23rd. Stern claims to be the father of the baby but the general consensus is that paparrazo Larry Birkhead is the biological father. Birkhead is suing Smith for custody.

MSNBC’s The Scoop reports that Anna is trying to set up an offshore company in order to hide potential assets from Birkhead. Anna is still fighting for a piece of the $1.6 billion estate of J. Howard Marshall, the 89 year-old guy she married and jerked off for a year before he died in 1995. His son, who was trying to bar Anna from cashing in on the will, passed away last summer, but word is that Anna doesn’t have much of a chance of getting the money now.

Anna Nicole showed off a new huge back tattoo that features her and her baby Dannielynn in a cute pose together. I first thought it was Anna’s departed son Daniel on the tattoo, but now it looks more like Anna to me. Whoever did the tattoo was probably as medicated as Anna usually is, and they certainly weren’t a talented artist. It would make more sense if it was supposed to be Daniel, but doesn’t it look like Anna?

These pictures show what a parasite Howard K. Stern is. He looks like he’s smelling Anna’s hair here and in every photo he’s grabbing onto to her. What a freak he is.

Lindsay Lohan resolves to wear thong underwear to all funerals.

Britney Spears plans to make sure her children are properly secured in car seats before she drives under the influence.

Nicole Richie resolves to poop after she eats.

Paris Hilton resolves to quit being such a homebody and get out of the house more.

Angelina Jolie, in an effort to be taken seriously as an actress and humanitarian, plans to play the role of the princess in the new Mario Bros movie.

Madonna resolves to get more publicity for something she’ll figure out later.

Tom Cruise vows to quit exercising so hard and let himself go a little.

Matthew McConaughey vows to exercise shirtless outdoors at least once a week.

Christina Aguilera plans to be a bit more glamorous.

Victoria Beckham wants to lose those pesky last three pounds.

Jennifer Aniston plans to do a lot more cathartic yoga.

Nicole Kidman vows not to be the subject of any country songs.

Jessica Simpson vows to take some time off and relax.

Eva Longoria plans to speak her mind, or whatever comes to mind at the time.

Anna Nicole resolves to get blotto every day.

K-Fed resolves to get as much cash as possible in the divorce settlement and still come off as the good guy.

George Clooney vows to play the field in memory of his departed pig.

Thanks to my brother Mike for help with this list, some of which is humor, some obvious.

Anna Nicole did an Entertainment Tonight interview in which she tried to refute rumors about her trashtastic lifestyle. She appeared heavily made up and slurred her responses on camera, but she wasn’t as obviously inebriated as Danny DeVito on The View, and it’s possible that she just always sounds like that. She said that everyone around her wants their 15 minutes, and that they’re making up rumors about how she’s living in a dark house without power to get their name in the papers. She claims she rightfully owns the house from which she’s being evicted, but that she’s buying another big house on the water anyway.

She plans to stay in the Bahamas as her son is buried there and she had her baby daughter there.

She cried pitifully when talking about Thanksgiving, and says that she didn’t celebrate it because she’s too choked up over not having Daniel there to ask for his favorite candied yam dish.

Oh, and she said she’s pregnant again months after her having her baby Dannielynn, just like Britney. She tried to take it back, but it was too late and she achieved the desired effect. We’re all going to talk about her today. At least we don’t have to look at her snatch.

Turning to the cameras, Smith said, “I think I might be pregnant again.”

She added, “I’m not ready. (But) Howard wants to have another baby, he wants to have a little boy.”

Smith was referring to Howard K. Stern, her partner and father of her three-month-old daughter Dannielyn.

A few minutes later, she realized that she may have said a little bit too much.

“I feel we should change the subject,” she said, giggling.

The show reported that off-camera Smith told producers that she wasn’t really pregnant, she was just kidding.

You can watch the video yourself through the Entertainment Tonight website. (Video link is to the upper right.) I didn’t hear Anna Nicole say she was pregnant, but it’s possible ET cut that part out of the Internet version, and the source that claims she did is CBS news, which seems solid enough.

Anna Nicole is also being legally compelled to return to the states and submit to paternity testing, but considering that she has a lawyer for a lapdog who also claims to be the baby’s father, it’s unlikely that she’ll do so any time soon.

Thanks to ONTD and I’m Not Obsessed for the links.

This video is so graphic I’m not posting it here, and you can go on over to Gawker to watch it. This proves that Anna Nicole Smith will stop at nothing to get some cash, because she sold this video for $1 million dollars. I don’t know why I’m surprised, considering that her claim to fame was marrying an 89 year-old guy she met while stripping the afternoon shift.

I’m pretty grateful that this was taped off the television instead of being directly transfered to video, because the added bit of blur gives it that much less of an edge, but it’s still really cringe-worthy. If Danielle was still alive he would be mortified, and this footage is sure to haunt Dannielynn for the rest of her ridiculed life.