The Anna Nicole death saga is as complicated and messed 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.

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