Lawyer: Anna Nicole Son's Tox Screen Negative

[stu]

Anna Nicole Smith has been dealt her first card and is waiting to see if she's handed three of a kind.

 

 

E! News learned exclusively Wednesday that the first of three toxicology tests performed on Smith's son, Daniel, turned up no traces of illegal substances in his bloodstream.

 

 

Anna Nicole's attorney and confidante, Howard K. Stern, said that, as expected, doctors found the antidepressant Lexapro and sleeping medication Ambien in Daniel's system but not at levels that could have caused his sudden death Sept. 10 at age 20.

 

 

The first toxicology report was based on blood drawn at the hospital in the Bahamas where Daniel died while visiting his mom, who had given birth to a baby girl three days earlier, Stern told E! News. The reality TV star is still waiting for the results of tox screens from each of the two autopsies performed on Daniel's body. Both autopsies ruled out various natural causes of death (heart disease, stroke, birth defect, etc.) but did not lead to a definitive answer.

 

 

Bahamian officials finally issued a death certificate (the cause of death was listed as "pending chemical analysis") Wednesday and released Daniel's body to Anna Nicole, who has been so devastated by the loss of her son that she suffered memory loss shortly after it happened, requiring Stern to break the news to her a second time. Another of Anna Nicole's lawyers, Michael Scott, has since said the TrimSpa spokesmodel is doing much better and was hoping for more information from the various tests being conducted.

 

 

Meanwhile, David Giancola, the director of the sci-fi film Anna Nicole recently starred in, Illegal Aliens, told E! News that Daniel Smith, who worked as an apprentice on the movie, had been hospitalized off and on in August to be treated for an elevated heart rate. Giancola said that Daniel lost nearly 30 pounds during that time and suffered from constant stomach pain.

 

 

The second autopsy performed Sept. 17 at Smith's request by a private pathologist, Cycil Wecht, turned up traces of prescription meds that Daniel was taking to treat depression he started to experience four to six weeks before his death. Both Wecht and the Bahamian coroner who did the first autopsy both found no evidence to suggest Daniel died from a suicidal overdose. However, the coroner did at the time deem the cause of Daniel's death to be "not natural."

 

 

Meanwhile, though Bahamian head coroner Linda Virgill told reporters it was not unusual for families to request an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding a loved one's death, authorities reassigned Virgill Wednesday in light of public concern she may have given the Smith case special treatment.

 

 

Chief Magistrate Roger Gomez told the Associated Press that complaints started rolling in when an inquest date was announced. "They've been complaining that, 'How is it that this case just came up and a date has been set and our case has been pending for years and we don't have a date yet,' " Gomez said.

 

 

The official said that an inquest scheduled for Oct. 23 will be canceled if authorities can determine that Daniel died of natural causes. Anna Nicole is currently free to leave the Bahamas but has chosen to stay put for the time being. Stern says funeral arrangement are being made in California.

 

 

Daniel was Anna Nicole's son with husband Bill Smith. The duo tied the knot in 1985 and divorced two years later.

 

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