Were There Warning Signs for Anna Nicole?

Feb. 10, 2007 — -- While it could be weeks before the exact cause of Anna Nicole Smith's death is known, there are many questions about her final days and whether there were warning signs about her state of mind and the state of her health.

Smith lived her life in the public eye. At first, the camera was in love with her, but as her career progressed, that love affair took a dark turn.

"There had been some drug issues before -- a brief stint in rehab," said Robert Howe, news editor of People Magazine. "But I think inside we hoped she can find a way out of it."

But it became increasingly clear that Smith wasn't going to find a way out of it.

"Do you like my body?" Smith asked a cheering crowd during a garbled, rambling appearance at the 2004 American Music Awards.

ABC News showed some of Smith's public appearances to clinical psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Gardere.

"That first statement, 'like my body' -- this is someone who's a sex symbol and has to live up to it even when she doesn't feel like it," Gardere said. "And that's very sad."

"I see someone who is screaming out for help. This is someone who is in deep, deep pain and is asking, screaming please help me," he said.

But while Smith was showing public signs of pain, did she have anyone to turn to? Could she have been saved from her demons?

"She supposedly had a very good relationship with her son Daniel," Howe said. "She really liked him as sort of her best friend, which made it all the more tragic when he passed away last fall."

Toward the end, Smith had very few people around her to hear her cries -- just her partner, Howard K. Stern, and some bodyguards.

"I tried to warn her about drugs and the people that she hung around, and she didn't listen," Smith's mother Virgie Arthur said.

But Smith and her mother were estranged.

In Smith's last television interview, the former Playmate said, "Everyone in my life has stabbed me in my back or said something bad about me or sued me or blackmailed me."