Anna's son 'fine' before death

2007-11-21 13:50

Nassau - In the hours before his death, the 20-year-old son of Anna Nicole Smith appeared fine to medical personnel in the Bahamas, who said on Tuesday they saw him walking in his celebrity mother's room, talking and sleeping in the same bed with her.

On the second day of an inquest into the September 10 2006 death of Daniel Smith, nursing assistant Francis Woodside said the young man was sleeping in the same bed as his mother, while her attorney and partner Howard K Stern slept in the other, about 3 hours and 40 minutes before a hospital-wide alarm that he had been found unconscious.

Woodside noted nothing unusual in the room except the sleeping arrangements. "We don't usually have that happen, patients sleeping in the bed with relatives," she told a jury that will decide the official cause of death and whether authorities should pursue any criminal charges.

'No evidence of homicide'

Nurse-midwife Janice Knowles and phlebotomist Mavis Davis also testified that they did not notice anything wrong with Smith before medical personnel found him not breathing and with no pulse at about 09:40.

Police have said there is no evidence of homicide in Daniel Smith's death and an autopsy found the likely cause was a combination of drugs, including methadone and antidepressants.

Smith was visiting his mother after she gave birth to daughter Dannielynn, who became the subject of a bitter custody battle after the former Playboy playmate herself collapsed and died on February 8 in Florida.

- AP