by Rita Cosby
The normally joyous occasion of taking a newborn baby home from the hospital was filled with overwhelming sadness for Anna Nicole Smith, even though she had long hoped for a little girl. Anna's new friends, Immigration Minister Shane Gibson and Theresa Laramore, came to take the three-day-old unnamed baby of the as yet unnamed father, out of the chaos of room 201 after Daniel's death. Anna Nicole's new baby was whisked away quickly out the back door of the hospital to avoid attention. Anna Nicole stayed behind, clinging to the body of Daniel.
It is a mother's worst nightmare—the birth of one child, the death of another. According to eyewitnesses, it was a terribly emotional, pitiful scene—having her son die in her hospital bed in a foreign country where she had just given birth, and then refusing to let them take his body to the morgue. Anna Nicole was uncontrollable, delirious, and had to be sedated before she would finally let go of Daniel's body.
When Anna's grasp of reality and on her child had lessened, Daniel's body was taken out of her bed to the morgue for the mandatory autopsy. After Howard gave police his recollection of what had happened since Daniel's arrival, he, Ben, and several others loaded everything into Ben's rented van, and a heavily tranquilized, sobbing Anna was helped to the car. Rather than sealing the room and its contents, police weren't acting like the hospital room was a crime scene, so Howard and Anna were free to remove all their belongings— Anna's clothes, flowers sent to the hospital for her newborn, even Daniel's suitcase and some of Daniel's clothes that medical personnel had stripped from his body in the fruitless attempts to save his life.
They were also able to remove what numerous friends have described as Howard's "goodie bag." Howard typically carried either a brown Coach bag or a black duffle bag. It was a repository for an assortment of drugs, which, according to employees, friends, and court testimony, he doled out to Anna on an "as-he-thought-she-needed" basis.
"He was the pharmacist and that was the drugstore," Ben Thompson said. So much so that friends would later find it ironic when Larry King asked Howard K. Stern if Lexapro was an antidepressant, and Howard answered, "I'm not too familiar with how medications work but, yes, it's an anti– depressant."
Anna's friend Jackie Hatten told me she's witnessed Howard giving Anna a medley of drugs: "Vicodin, Valium, morphine, Demerol, you name it, he had it."
As they were leaving the hospital, Howard asked Ben to watch over the duffle bag and the camera bag, after he had taken a number of photos of Daniel. "I don't understand why the Bahamian Police didn't lock down that hospital room," Ben said. But they didn't. The bags were free to go.
"Don't let them out of your sight," Howard said, pointing to the camera bag. "Anna's life is in that bag."
As they left the hospital that tragic September day, two pills weren't in Howard's "goodie bag"—the two that were found in the bed where Howard had slept. Those two pills were now in a plastic bag and being held by the Bahamian police as possible evidence.
That morning when Nadine Carey, the nurse on duty at 9:38 a.m., heard "Code Blue" she hurried to room 201 and found the medical team rushing around the bed where Daniel Smith lay lifeless. The medical equipment, life-saving apparatus, and numerous people, including a wailing Anna Nicole, were crowding the room. In order to free up space, Carey pulled the bed nearest the door out and into the hall in order to give doctors better access to try and work their miracles on Daniel's breathless body. When she did, she noticed two white tablets on top of the sheets, one smaller than the other. Following protocol, she gave them to the doctor on duty, the doctor gave them to his supervisor, and then the two pills were passed on to the Bahamian police constable, who put them in a plastic bag and sent them away for testing.
When Howard recounted the story of that awful morning two weeks later on Larry King Live, he pointedly made mention that Daniel had also spent time in that bed. "At first I was going to sleep on the floor in between the two beds," he explained, "and Daniel was in the bed closest to the door. And, Daniel at some point said to me that, you know, he wasn't really that tired, so why didn't I just take the bed and he was going to sit up and watch TV."
But according to at least three nurses on duty, Daniel was never in that bed. "Only the man was in the bed," they each said. Contrary to Howard's story, the nurses said in their initial statements to police that it was Howard and only Howard who had been in that other hospital bed as each made their rounds that night and early morning. Daniel had been in the chair, then at 5:30 a.m. he had moved into the same bed with his mother. None of the nurses saw Daniel in the bed nearest the door.
The two pills found in the bed where the nurses saw Howard sleeping were determined to be methadone, a synthetic narcotic used to treat opiate addicts, and Carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant. Anna Nicole had prescriptions for both medications. In fact, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, Anna's Los Angeles based doctor, wrote a prescription for methadone on August 25, 2006, just thirteen days before she gave birth. The prescription, RX#2846735, was written for Michelle Chase, one of Anna Nicole's favorite aliases. Key Pharmacy in the San Fernando Valley had filled the prescription, which was sent to "Vicky Marshall" (sic) at a Harbour Bay Shopping Plaza post office box on East Bay Street in Nassau, Bahamas. Under California law, it's illegal to prescribe a controlled substance to a false name.
Bahamian Police did find something interesting on Daniel's body that wasn't cleared and packed into Ben Thompson's rented van. They'd found a business card in one of Daniel's pockets. The business card was that of Jack Harding, the private investigator Daniel had met with the month before he died. The man whom Daniel had told how deathly afraid he was of Howard K. Stern. Jack Harding told me, "When I heard that Daniel died, I was shocked but not surprised that Stern could be there and be involved somehow."
A few weeks after Daniel's death, California private eye Jack Harding got a call from a detective at the Burbank Police Department asking if he had been in the Bahamas investigating for Daniel Smith, and if so, informing him that he was in violation of Bahamian law. Forty-five minutes later the officer, along with four Bahamian police officers and an "official looking" man in a light colored suit showed up at Jack Harding's house and questioned him for an hour in his living room. Harding told me that they asked him, "Why did the boy call you?" and "Why did he have your card?"
The Drug Enforcement Agency and the California Medical Association have also called asking him about Howard and drugs.
But the Bahamian police weren't the only surprise visitors the private eye had. In April of 2007, two months after Anna's death, at 8:45 p.m., Jack Harding's three dogs went bolting through his backyard, barking madly. He went to see what the commotion was and caught a man trying to sneak over his fence.
"Are you Jack Harding?" the man asked, dogs growling at his feet.
"Yep," Harding answered.
"Well, I'm John Nazarian, and I'm retained by Howard K. Stern."
He handed Harding his business card: "John Nazarian of Nazarian and Associates, Investigations and Securities." Harding said the card had an interesting e-mail address on it: "[email protected]."
In June of 2006, the Los Angeles Times ran a front-page piece on John Nazarian, a fifty-five-year-old Hollywood gumshoe in the Sam Spade tradition. He, like many of the 2,100 licensed private eyes in Los Angeles County, are the hired guns the celebrities call when they need their problems to disappear. Nazarian, who claims to get $10,000 to $20,000 retainers and $400 an hour, has worked for a number of celebrity clients, including Peggy Lee (whom he protected from paparazzi), Dean Martin, and the television show Extra, which sent him to Mexico to hunt for Olivia Newton-John's boyfriend, who had disappeared after a fishing trip.
Nazarian is also the only investigator used by the "dean of L.A. divorce lawyers," Sorrell Trope. Trope and Trope is the law firm where Ron Rale works. Ron Rale is the man who has been vigorously defending Howard K. Stern even though he says he's not Howard's attorney. He says he merely oversees the interests of Anna. But Ron Rale is said to be
the one who introduced Howard K. Stern to Anna and is also listed, along with Howard, as the secondary executor of her will.
"Lots of people are trying to be private investigators or security experts," John Nazarian says on his website, "but there is only one proven LEGEND." Certainly, Nazarian's interesting tactics have gained him a notorious reputation. Lynn Soodik, an attorney specializing in family law, told the Los Angeles Times that Nazarian definitely tried to intimidate her during a case against one of Nazarian's clients. He sent a greeting card to her at home. "On the surface, it was not threatening," she said, "but you knew he was saying, 'I know where you live.'"
Nazarian told the paper he also went through her trash, just to unnerve her. "Not that we break the law," he said, "but a private eye, by the mere fact of what we do, it's not like we're a bunch of choirboys. We're not."
Incidentally, neighbors would later tell Harding that they saw a man in the neighborhood fitting Nazarian's description taking pictures of Harding's house.
A former cop, Nazarian has a team of experts who work with him—a handwriting analyst, a forensic accountant, a lab technician, and technology whizzes—but it is perhaps his menacing looks and reputation that often goes the farthest to getting the job done. He looks like a professional wrestler, shaving his head like Kojak and shaping his black dyed goatee into an interesting wing-like spread across his jaw. His typical attire includes a hat, oversize designer shades, and lots of "bling." He owns a cream-colored Bentley and a Rolls Royce and wears two chunky trademark rings of gold and platinum that look like two squashed golf balls sitting atop his knuckles.
"I'm looking for a guy who's 75," Nazarian told fellow P.I. Jack Harding as they stood in Harding's backyard shortly after Anna's death. Seventy-four-year-old Jack Harding knew the game being played. He was being intimidated. He was being not so subtly told to keep his mouth shut about what he knows. Nazarian then made comments such as "Hey, this is a good area you live in" and "Your house is worth a lot. You need to protect that place."
"He was definitely threatening me and letting me know he's been doing research on me," Jack Harding told me. "It was clear that Howard K. Stern had sent his goon over to intimidate me."
Sunday, September 10, afternoon into evening
As Daniel's body went to the morgue to await its mandatory autopsy, his mother was taken back to Horizons, the Bahamian home her former boyfriend Ben Thompson had signed over to her so that she could meet the Bahamian residency requirements.
On almost one acre, the gated estate on Eastern Road in New Providence is lushly landscaped and has panoramic water views. The all-white, neo-Mediterranean style house is protected like a fortress behind locked gates and privacy bushes. Verandas and terraces overlook pristine gardens, a tennis court, and a gothic looking pool with Grecian statues.
But besides the work of gardeners and handymen, activity on the outside of the house for Anna Nicole Smith was rare. It was inside the three-bedroom, three-bath house where all the drama occurred. She was sequestered inside the waterfront mansion, like an aging beauty hiding from the flash of cameras, or worse. She was a depressed new mother, who'd just lost her beloved other child, and was infused with mindnumbing drugs.
An employee who started working for them as soon as she and Howard moved to the house and stayed on for seven months up until her death, earned Anna's trust and confidence. He became her confidante. Later, he told me that "Howard never treated her right," and that what went on inside the house, both before and after Daniel's death, was "terrible and rocky." He said, "He'd cuss at her. I saw him push her down on the bed a couple of times. I asked her about it and she said, 'don't worry with it. He'll get over it.' She didn't want no hard feelings from me toward Howard, so she told me just to leave it at that."
"He pushed her on the bed once and said, 'Get your fat, fucking ass away from me.' I walked in and he stopped. She just started crying. She told me everything would be okay . . . . I saw a lot. I know a lot."
"Why did she tolerate the abuse?" I asked.
"He had something on her that she couldn't bring to the public," he said. "She was afraid of him because he had something on her."
• • •
When they got back to the Horizons house the day Daniel died, Ben and Anna went to Howard's bedroom, while Gaither Thompson, Ben's son, and Ford Shelley, Ben's son-in-law, went to Anna's bedroom where Howard had started rifling through all of Daniel's things. Howard and Anna had separate bedrooms, approximately one hundred feet apart. While Ben comforted Anna, Ford says Howard was aggressively searching through Daniel's jeans, his shoes, his t-shirt, and baseball cap, which were all laid out on the bed in Anna's room.
Both Gaither and Ford saw two pills fall out of Daniel's front pocket. "They were two white tablets," Ford Shelley said, "odd shaped. I'm not sure what they were."
Howard took the pills, went into the bathroom and closed the door. Suspicious of what Howard was doing, Ford walked over to the bathroom door and heard the toilet flush. When he came out of the bathroom, Ford Shelley says Howard proclaimed, "I took care of the problem."
"Why are you doing this?" Ford asked. "I wouldn't have done that if I were you."
After a long pause, Howard said, "Well, I did."
Ford believes Howard was protecting Daniel and Anna, but told me, "Jesus Christ! I can't believe he'd destroy evidence like that." Ford also told me, "I believe Howard was doing what Anna told him to do. I believe Anna told him to make sure anything suspicious was gone. No matter how drunken and out of it Anna was, she was still aware and knew she could not have drug evidence tied to Daniel."
It should not go unnoted that Anna had been heavily sedated since the hospital—hallucinating and saying she wanted Daniel to come watch a movie with her. Anna would later say she had no memory of the morning her son suddenly and mysteriously died. Ford Shelley never spoke to Howard about those two pills again.
Monday, September 11
Bahamian coroner Linda Virgill called to ask Anna to come identify the body of her son, and Anna, overwrought with sadness and heavily medicated, signed a paper allowing Howard to make the positive identification. Howard K. Stern and Ford Shelley went to the morgue and identified the body as being Daniel Wayne Smith, the twenty-year-old son of the woman known as Anna Nicole Smith.
At the morgue Linda Virgill told Howard that she wanted to come to the house and ask Anna questions about her son's death. Howard told her Anna wasn't up to visitors, that it would be better if she could come at a later time. Linda Virgill said no, she was going to the house now. Howard and Ford said they were hungry and wanted to stop and grab a bite to eat. Linda Virgill wasn't hungry and wanted no delays. There was no stopping. She was going to the house immediately.
On the drive back to the house Howard and Ford Shelley were in a separate vehicle from Virgill. According to Shelley, Howard called and told someone on the other end of the phone, "Go put the pills away now!" He explained the coroner was on the way, and added, "Put the pills in the bag under the bed or in the bed in the master bedroom."
The master bedroom was Anna's bedroom.
"What are you doing?" Ford asked. "Maybe Daniel took something that would've killed him."
For the rest of the drive, Howard was silent. "He clearly wanted to hide those pills before the coroner got there and started snooping around," Ford said.
When they arrived at the house, Linda Virgill asked a lot of questions about drugs, prescriptions, and that night in the hospital. She also looked around the minimally decorated house, taking in the home environment of the Bahamas' newest celebrity resident. Ford Shelley says Howard repeatedly told Linda Virgill, as he would also tell other Bahamian authorities, that there were no drugs present and no drug history for Daniel. "There is no way any drugs could've played a role," Howard said.
Ford says he was shocked by Howard's clear lie. They knew Howard had taken those pills out of Daniel's pocket before he made those statements to the coroner and also had all the pil
ls in the house as well as the "goodie bag" put away. "He had already tampered with evidence," Ford said.
That night, the air conditioning in Anna's bedroom didn't work, and when Ford, his wife, and Howard lifted the mattress to move it into another room to sleep on, his "goodie bag" fell from between Anna's mattress where it had been hidden and onto the floor. Howard picked it up, gave it to Ford's wife and instructed her to "put it in a safe, concealed place."
In talking with Ford Shelley and Ben Thompson about Linda Virgill's last minute visit that day, Howard announced, "We need to get her removed. She's going to be a problem."
Wednesday, September 13
Two days later, Her Majesty's coroner Linda P. Virgill announced the death of Daniel Wayne Smith was "suspicious" and scheduled a formal inquiry, an "inquest," which could lead to criminal charges. Bradley Neely, chief inspector of the coroner's office, was quick to explain to the Associated Press, "Whenever there is a suspicious death we would have an inquest to determine how the person died."
Virgill went further, saying authorities believe they knew what killed Daniel, but said that the autopsy and toxicology reports would not be released until the inquest. "It would not be fair to the Bahamian public simply because we need to take our jurors from that pool and you do not wish to contaminate them," she told reporters. She did, however, say that there was no sign of physical injury and confirmed rather ominously that "there was definitely a third person in the room at the time of death and I do know who that person is."
