NASSAU, Bahamas - The dangerous amount of methadone taken by Anna Nicole Smith's 20-year-old son was the main factor behind his death last year, the Bahamian police's forensics chief testified Tuesday at an inquest into the death.
Superintendent Quinn McCartney's conclusion differs slightly from the findings of two pathologists who said Daniel Smith was killed by an interaction of methadone and two antidepressants.
"Even if there were no other drugs present in (Smith's) bloodstream, the methadone level would be enough to set off alarms," said McCartney, who added that the young man had bloody froth in his lungs that he interpreted as a "clear sign of overdose."
Testimony in the inquest is scheduled to resume Wednesday.
Daniel Smith collapsed and died Sept. 10, 2006, as he visited his celebrity mother at a Nassau hospital where she had given birth three days earlier.
Police believe he came to the Bahamas the night before and went directly to the hospital where he spent the night with his mother, her boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, and his newborn half-sister. McCartney said the methadone could have been in his system when he arrived.
Anna Nicole Smith, a reality TV star and former Playboy playmate, died Feb. 8 in Florida from an overdose of prescription drugs, including a sleep aid that she reportedly took to cope with grief over her son's death. Smith, 39, was buried beside her son at a Nassau cemetery.
An attorney for Stern said Monday that Smith's son was taking medications including methadone, which is often prescribed as a pain reliever or to suppress drug withdrawal symptoms, to treat either depression or back pain.
Another witness on the fourth day of the inquest, police Inspector Frederick Taylor, testified that former Immigration Minister Shane Gibson was in the hospital room when he and other officers arrived at the facility.
Gibson, who fast-tracked Anna Nicole Smith's application for permanent residency in the Bahamas, later resigned after a newspaper published photographs of him embracing her on a bed.
