Awaiting the Anna Nicole Verdict

Like any good soap-opera cliffhanger, the resolution will come on a Monday.

At 10:30 a.m. ET/7:30 a.m. PT, to be precise.

That's when Broward County Medical Examiner Joshua Perper and Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger are set to headline a show that could be called What Killed Anna Nicole Smith?

Costars presumably will include the final results of Smith's autopsy and officials' cause-of-death determination.

On Friday, the National Enquirer and Star sought to get a jump on the scheduled press conference with a joint report claiming Smith died from a "toxic level" of chloral hydrate, a prescription sleep-aid medication.

The former Playboy Playmate and E! reality star might have been seeking relief from the raging fever, vomiting and diarrhea that resulted from twin infections caused by the prick of an unsterilized needle, the tabloids reported.

If left untreated, the infections alone could have killed Smith, the tabloids said.

The papers ruled out usual suspects such as methadone and painkillers and instead tracked Smith's problems back to three days before her death, when they said she received an injection to her left buttock. They did not speculate as to what kind of injection Smith received, only that the needle she received it from was not sterilized.

The Enquirer previously reported that authorities were closing in on severe pneumonia as the cause of death.

Perper and Tiger will have the final word, or at least the final formal word.

But not until Monday morning.

While the tabloid-world awaits the verdict, here's a look at some of the twists and plot turns of the past six weeks:

Feb. 8

• At about 1:30 p.m. ET, in Room 607 of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, Smith's private nurse finds the 39-year-old star unresponsive and not breathing. 
• The Seminole Police Department, which has jurisdiction over the casino grounds, places a 911 call, seeking paramedics. The victim is a "white female," a Seminole Police official says, adding for clarification, "She's actually Anna Nicole Smith..."
• Paramedics arrive and perform CPR on Smith, as her private bodyguard previously had done. Howard K. Stern, Smith's ever-present companion, and the father of her infant daughter, Dannielynn Hope, per the girl's birth certificate, provides the EMTs with Smith's medical history.
• Smith is transported to Hollywood's Memorial Regional Hospital. She is pronounced dead at 2:49 p.m.
• In Smith's adopted homeland of the Bahamas, Dannielynn Hope turns five months old.

Feb. 9

• In Los Angeles, an emergency court hearing is convened at the behest of Larry Birkhead, the photographer who has been fighting to be declared Dannielynn's father.
• Superior Court Judge Ronald Schnider, who the day before Smith's death ordered the model and pitchwoman to submit to DNA testing, rules that her body be preserved at the morgue in Florida until at least Feb. 20.
• In Florida, Perper says Smith's preliminary autopsy results are inconclusive.
• At the same press conference, Tiger says Smith's hotel room was found to be free of illegal drugs, not to mention signs of criminal wrongdoing.
• Back in L.A., Prince Frederic Von Anhalt, the eighth husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor, tells the Associated Press he had an affair with Smith and could be Dannielynn's father.
• Virgie Arthur, Smith's mother, arrives in the Bahamas to seek a visit with her granddaughter—and lay the groundwork for a legal challenge of her own.

Feb. 15

• In Florida, Stern and Arthur go to court over who can call the shots as to where Smith is buried. Stern wants the right to inter Smith in the Bahamas, where Smith's first child, Daniel, died and was buried in 2006; Arthur wants her daughter's body brought to Texas, where the future celebrity was born.
• In Santa Monica, California, Von Anhalt formally enters the Dannielynn paternity ring, filing court papers seeking a DNA test.

Feb. 17

• Smith is embalmed, then returned to her holding place. "They did a good job," Perper praises.

Feb. 18

• Bahamian immigration minister Shane Gibson resigns his post after pictures of him in a clinch with Smith are published. The photos fuel allegations that Gibson's head wasn't doing the thinking when he ruled on Smith's residency application. Unlike Von Anhalt and others, Gibson denies being romantically involved with Smith.
  

Feb. 21

• On the stand in Florida, Stern, an attorney, testifies that he was entirely dependent on Smith and his parents for financial support.

Feb. 22

• Choking back tears, Broward County Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin awards Smith's remains not to Stern, not to Arthur, but to...Dannielynn.
• Acting on behalf of the baby, court-appointed guardian Richard Milstein says Smith should be buried in the Bahamas, next to Daniel Smith.

Feb. 23

• Arthur appeals the Dannielynn ruling.

Feb. 28

• A Florida appeals court rejects Arthur's argument; the Bahamian funeral is a go.

Mar. 2

• Smith is laid to rest in the Bahamas, beating the likewise long-on-ice James Brown to a final resting place. (Brown, who died last Christmas Day, didn't settle in until Mar. 11.)
• The services are attended by as many as 150 mourners, including Stern, Birkhead, Arthur and Slash. Dannielynn, Von Anhalt and Axl Rose do not make the scene.
• Speaking at the service, Stern remembers Smith as "one of the smartest people I know."
• Birkhead offers a heartfelt, "Goodnight, sweet Anna baby," en route to seeking a multimedia trademark on the farewell phrase.

Mar. 9

• In Florida, Perper says he knows what caused Smith's death. But he cautions the release of the findings will have to hold while police conclude their look at the evidence, which reportedly includes Smith's computers and records of her prescription-drug lineup thereon.

Mar. 13

• NBC's Law & Order: Criminal Intent confirms it'll serve the underplayed Smith story with a May sweeps episode starring Kristy Swanson as a doomed, Smith-esque celebrity.

Mar. 15

• Florida authorities try to tamp down speculation that a homicide investigation is brewing.
  
• In Los Angeles, Von Anhalt sues Bill O'Reilly for calling him a fraud on TV, as opposed to, presumably, the privacy of the Fox News star's own home.

Mar. 16

• Birkhead and paternity-battle attorney Debra Opri break up. She says she couldn't stand watching Birkhead try to broker a deal with Stern; he says he wanted "to go in a different direction."

Mar. 21

• Birkhead and Dannielynn reportedly submit to DNA tests. The baby's genetic sample is flown from the Bahamas to Ohio for a lab look-see.

Mar. 22

• Stern, who has not submitted to a DNA test, reportedly prepares a legal challenge to hold up the release of the paternity tests.
• Perper announces Monday's press conference to discuss the final autopsy results.

Mar. 23

• Refusing to cede the headlines, Von Anhalt presents an L.A. lab with a sample of his own DNA. Not that anyone asked.

Stay tuned for...

Monday's press conference will only address why Smith died. Other pending cliffhangers:

• Who is Dannielynn's father?
• Will Dannielynn ever get a piece of the fortune from the estate of J. Howard Marshall, her mother's late billionaire husband?
• What killed Daniel Smith? (The Bahamian inquest into the younger Smith's death, tagged by a private forensic pathologist as an accidental overdose of prescription drugs and methadone, is set to begin Monday.)
• Where will Stern live? (Stern is fighting off eviction from the Bahamian estate where he and Smith made their home. The latest hearing on that matter is set for April.)
• Will a TV soap opera ever get any soapier than all this?

The answer, to that last one at least, is: Not likely.

For a refresher course on the myriad characters involved in all of the above proceedings, check out our Anna Nicole cheat sheet.