Anna Nicole Smith's Final Drug Cocktail Ruled 'Accidental Overdose'

March 26, 2007 — -- Anna Nicole Smith died of an accidental drug overdose of nine prescription medications, but an extensive six-week investigation found no signs of foul play, Florida authorities said on Monday.

Broward County Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper described Smith as a heavily medicated woman suffering from a variety of seemingly overwhelming pressures.

Among the compounds found in her bloodstream were antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs, human growth hormones, benzodiazapams and the sleep medication chloral hydrate.

"We are convinced, based on an extensive view of the evidence, that this case is an accidental overdose with no other criminal elements present," said Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger.

Smith had also been receiving injections of drugs in her buttocks. On the Monday before she died, a blood infection from one of those injections caused a 105-degree fever.

Smith's friends asked her to go to the hospital to treat the fever, but she refused. If she had taken the advice, Perper said, her death Thursday may have been prevented.

"A fever of 105 is life-threatening," Perper said, "but she refused and she's not a child -- she has the right to refuse and the people around determined that she had the capability to make such a decision."

"If she had gone to the hospital, I think that yes, she would have had a chance of survival," Perper said.

None of the medications found in Smith's blood were at radically high levels, Perper said, except for chloral hydrate. He said the sleep medication played a major role in her death.

Chloral hydrate is one of the earliest known American sedatives and gained notoriety in the 1800s as the potent ingredient in a Mickey Finn ' -- a debilitating cocktail of chloral hydrate and alcohol. Legend has it that the so-called ''knockout drop" was used by a Chicago bartender who slipped the substance into unsuspecting patrons' drinks and then robbed them.

The announcement comes a day before the beginning of an inquest in the Bahamas into the accidental drug overdose of Smith's son last fall, three days after Smith had given birth to a baby, Dannielynn, named in after the child's late stepbrother. A private pathologist determined that the young man had died of an accidental overdose of methadone, antidepressants, Lexapro and Zoloft.

The similar deaths had initially raised suspicions among some that Smith's longtime companion and "personal lawyer" Howard K. Stern had been somehow involved in the deaths of mother and son. He was present or nearby at both deaths.