Disturbing Details Discovered In Anna Nicole Smith’s Autopsy Report
Model-turned-actress Anna Nicole Smith was a head-turner from the moment she catapulted to stardom after appearing in popular Guess ads in the early 1990s. She was also 1993’s “Playmate of the Year,” and her rise in fame was followed by acting roles as well as a reality TV series (via IMDb). The looker from a small town in Texas was born Vickie Lynn Hogan in 1967 and grew up poor. As her star rose, she was compared to the likes of classic beauties such as Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. Smith also made headlines when she married 89-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994. Marshall died soon after the wedding and Smith spent years waging court battles for a share in his estate, according to Biography.
Smith seemed unstoppable at the height of her stardom, and for more than a decade that was true — until tragedy struck. In September of 2006, her 20-year-old son, Daniel, died of an accidental drug overdose. The following February in 2007, the 39-year-old star was found unconscious in her room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino near Hollywood, Florida, per CNN. She was later pronounced dead at a local hospital and the results of an autopsy the following month determined she had also died of an accidental prescription drug overdose. The autopsy revealed that Smith had nine prescription drugs in her system, as well as a non-prescription drug and several supplements, ABC News reported.
Anna Nicole Smith ingested a lethal drug cocktail
When Anna Nicole Smith first died, there were whispers that she had been so heartbroken over her son’s death just months before that she had taken her own life. But Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger soon put that rumor to rest. “We are convinced, based on extensive review of the evidence, that this case is an accidental overdose with no other criminal element present,” he said at a news conference announcing Smith’s autopsy results on March 27, 2007 (via CNN). Still, the sheer number of drugs in her system was hard to ignore — she had ingested a lethal drug cocktail that included a dozen different medications either before or at the time of her death (via ABC News).
The Broward County Medical examiner at the time, Joshua Perper, confirmed that in addition to the prescription and non-prescription medications, Smith also had three antidepressant or anxiolytic drugs in her system. According to CNN, toxicology reports also found human growth hormone and chloral hydrate — a sleeping drug. The combination of this massive amount of drugs basically shut down her respiration and circulation systems, Perper said. “She didn’t suffer,” he noted. “She went to sleep.”
But the most disturbing fact about Smith’s death is that her autopsy revealed she had been receiving shots of either the growth hormone, B12 vitamins, and/or prescription drugs. And when a needle punctured an abscess in her buttock, bacteria was allowed into her bloodstream and caused a high fever shortly before her death. Perper believed if Smith had received treatment for the fever and infection, she probably would have lived (via CNN).
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