Six weeks after the death of Anna Nicole Smith, the cause of her passing was finally revealed. Six months after the death of Smith's son, there are still no answers.
Though all that could be changing soon.
A formal inquest into the death of 20-year-old Daniel Smith kicked off in the Bahamas Tuesday, to determine whether the boy's death should be ruled an accident, a suicide or even a homicide.
However, court proceedings were halted almost as soon as they began when Wayne Munroe, a lawyer for the estate of Anna Nicole Smith, asked the judge to consider a motion that "relates to the impaneling of a jury to act on this inquiry."
Members of the press and assorted spectators were ordered to leave while the court addressed the motion. Neither Munroe, nor any of the other attorneys involved in the case were willing to comment as they left court, stating that Bahamian legal rules prevented them from discussing matters raised in closed sessions.
Later in the day, Bernard Turner, director of public prosecutions, said the court would need more time to resolve the issue raised by Munroe, and that the inquest would not resume before Thursday. Jurors were excused until then.
Once the proceedings resume, Bahamian Chief Magistrate Roger Gomez will preside over the coroner's inquest, in which a seven-member jury will hear details about Daniel's death and decide whether a third party bears any criminal responsibility for his passing.
The inquest will take three to four weeks to complete and will include evidence and testimony from roughly 40 witnesses who met with Daniel in the days leading up to his death, including friends who saw him prior to his departure to the Bahamas, where he died just two days after his sister, Dannielynn, was born; police officers who examined the Nassau hospital room in which he was found dead; Larry Birkhead, who was aware of Daniel's L.A. drug use; and Howard K. Stern, who was reportedly the last person to see Daniel alive and who was allegedly asleep in the Doctors Hospital room when the boy was unable to be revived on Sept. 10.
Stern's lawyers had previously challenged the use of a jury in the inquest, though their objection was dismissed.
Another big name expected to testify at the inquest is Shane Gibson, the Bahamian Immigration Minister who was forced to step down from his post last month after photos surfaced of him and Smith in intimate poses. The pictures made the rounds at the same time he was facing widespread criticism for allegedly lavishing special treatment on Smith, fast-tracking her application for residency because of her celebrity status. The photos that surfaced showed that Gibson was in the hospital room where Smith had given birth, though it's unclear whether he ever had contact with Daniel.
Also expected to testify for the jury is Dr. Cyril Wecht, a private pathologist whom Smith hired in the wake of her son's passing and who ruled the boy's death to be an accidental overdose caused by fatally combining several antidepressants with Methadone.
However, the autopsy was performed privately and, while Wecht's results were made widely public last fall, the Bahamian government has not recognized his findings. The government did perform its own autopsy and toxicology screenings but did not make public the results of those tests.
The seven-person jury will be comprised of Bahamian residents between the ages of 21 and 60, who, at the close of the inquest, will render a verdict as to the hows and, possibly, via whos, of Daniel's passing.
Their decision, however, will not be legally binding, and should they determine that someone bears part or all of the responsibility of his death, it will be at the discretion of the Bahamian Attorney General, with permission from the Supreme Court, to press criminal charges.
The inquest, which is not expected to last more than a month, was originally scheduled to take place Oct. 23, but Gomez rescheduled the proceedings after the country's chief coroner was removed from her post and the procedure for how to deal with formal inquests was completely restructured.
As for a less formal investigation, the Bahamian Royal Police Force completed its own inquiry into the boy's death months ago and has since passed its findings on to the Attorney General.
In the meantime, some Bahamian companies are seeking answers of their own. Answers and money.
According to the Nassau Guardian, several local companies have yet to be paid for services rendered in connection to the Smith saga, including the East Sunrise Mortuary funeral home, which provided limos, escorts and decoys for Smith's Mar. 8 funeral, and Halsbury Chambers, a local law firm that represented Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, in several of her Bahama-based legal battles.
As for the funeral home, director Pedro Ferguson told the paper that Stern himself recently "took the initiative" to make sure payment was on its way. Halsbury Chambers received no such courtesy from Arthur.
The law firm has issued a debtors summons to Arthur, requiring her to pay up or face more legal action—action which could damage her credibility locally should she wish to continue fighting for custody of granddaughter Dannielynn.
Meanwhile, at least one question in the Smith saga was answered this week, as Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper, who performed the autopsy on Smith last month, announced the cause of her death Monday.
Perper said the former reality-show star died Feb. 8 as a result of an accidental overdose after combining the powerful sleeping drug chloral hydrate with at least nine other prescription drugs, including antidepressants, antianxiety medications and painkillers.
While a blood infection and flu symptoms also contributed to her death, the tipping point, per Perper, was the ingestion of the chloral hydrate, a potent and rarely prescribed drug, and one that was also rumored to have been a factor in the accidental overdose of Smith's idol, Marilyn Monroe.