Notes on a Press Conference

The Anna Nicole Smith autopsy press conference is in progress. Here's the liveblog.

Dr. Joshua Perper, the chief medical examiner for Broward County, kicks things off.

He thanks a bunch of people first. That's nice. Can we move on?

He introduces the Chief of Police, Charlie Taggert, who extends his sympathy and thanks a bunch of people. He says they plan to investigate thoroughly. He says no evidence exists to indicate that a crime occurred. They found no illegal drugs at the scene -- only prescription medicines. They are not releasing the names of those medicines. This incident will remain an open investigation until all tests are completed by the medical examiner's office.

Okay, the Doc's back. Heh. He makes reference to "Mrs. Nicole Smith." He says she had apparently been sick for several days from a stomach flu. Confirms that a bodyguard provided CPR, then medics transported her to the hospital. Patient was "virtually dead on arrival" and declared dead at 2:40 pm. Broward County assumed jurisdiction.

Autopsy excluded any type of physical injury as the cause of death -- no blunt force trauma, gun shot wounds, stab wounds, etc. I'm glad they had a crack medical team on-hand to determine that. They did find a minor bruise on her back, apparently attributable to a fall in the bathroom several days back. Autopsy revealed "subtle findings" in the heart and gastrointestinal system, pending microscopic verification. They also found "a small amount of blood" in her stomach, related to her being in terminal shock just before she died.

They are not yet making a determination on cause of death. They have to run a bunch of tests still. Doc gives us the laundry list of these. They estimate it will take 3-5 weeks to make a final determination. They plan to make "optimal efforts to expedite" this process, due to public interest in the case.

"No such indication" that Anna overdosed. They did not find any pills in her stomach. They don't have final results of the toxicology tests, but, in terms of what the naked eye can see, there were no pills. Doc seems to think that, if she'd taken a massive amount of pills, in keeping with a suicide overdose, there would still be visible pills in her stomach. But he hasn't completely ruled out an overdose.

"It is a possibility" that this might be a natural death. He says there are 3 major possibilities:

1) Natural causes
2) Medication or chemicals
3) Combination of the two.

Fascinating.

More later...

Update: Read Part 2 here.