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A year and three months after his mysterious death, the son of late Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith, Daniel, is still making headlines.
During the official inquest into Daniel Smith’s death, Bahamian pathologist Dr. Govinda Raju testified on Monday that the 20-year-old’s death was caused by a lethal combination of methadone and antidepressants Zoloft and Lexapro, while five other drugs were also found in his system, including those used by the medical personnel in an attempt to revive him after he collapsed while visiting his mother at a Nassau hospital.
Govinda’s autopsy findings echoed those of a private pathologist hired by Anna Nicole following her son’s death on September 10, 2006, just days after she gave birth to a daughter. The mix of drugs found in Daniel’s body is capable of becoming fatal in five-hour time.
"Once you boil it all down, these were medicines treating either pain or depression," said Wayne Munroe, the lawyer for Anna Nicole Smith's attorney and companion Howard K. Stern, who was also in the hospital room when Daniel died.
Both Zoloft and Lexapro, which were prescribed by a U.S. doctor, are commonly used to treat anxiety while methadone is prescribed as a pain reliever and is also used to suppress symptoms drug users experience when going through withdrawal from heroin and other opiates. However, Raju said it was unclear whether the drugs were actually all prescribed to Smith, as he had only the police report to base his conclusions on.
So far, the inquest into Daniel’s death revealed that Anna Nicole and her son spent three hours talking prior to his death, and the two were also sharing the bed at the hospital. A hospital nurse testified that she didn’t notice anything wrong with Daniel hours before his death.
Several months after Daniel’s death, Anna Nicole herself was rushed to the hospital on February 8, after she collapsed in her hotel room, and died shortly after from an overdose of prescription drugs.
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