Anna Nicole: Narcotics Found in Hotel Room

Suspicion that drugs killed Anna Nicole Smith was heightened today as investigators found illegal narcotics as well as prescription medications in Anna Nicole Smith's room at the Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood, Fla., according to reports this morning.

WCBS-TV in New York reports that drugs were found in Smith's hotel room, and a toxicology report that would determine whether those drugs caused her death has not yet been released. An autopsy is scheduled for this morning.

According to another report this morning, when an "employee" of Anna Nicole Smith found her in her hotel room, she appeared to have choked on her own vomit. The "credible source" cited by Access Hollywood says that when the employee encountered Smith in her room, she pulled back a sheet and discovered that the model-actress had choked. The same source, says Access, claims that Smith took a "children's sedative" and that she "kept passing out" before her death.

The footage of Anna Nicole Smith's last moments sold for more than $500,000, just hours after Smith's death in Hollywood, Fla., according to Splash News & Picture Agency, as reported by FOX News. The two-minute video, according to sources, shows paramedics working on the unresponsive actress, and her body being wheeled out on a gurney. The paramedics, according to a producer who viewed it, appear to pull the gurney back out of the ambulance to administer CPR again. But, adds the producer, the body is not readily identifiable as Anna Nicole Smith.

Now that both contestants in the battle of J. Howard Marshall's $1.6 billion fortune have died, the future of the suit is in some question. The Los Angeles Times reports that the suit is likely to continue in the name of Smith's infant daughter, Dannielynn Hope, even though the paternity is the subject of additional legal action. The Marshall family lawyer still contends that Smith "is entitled to nothing," and Smith's lawyer in the case says that it's hard to know what will happen next. "Things were sort of up in the air before this," he said. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which then sent it back to Federal court.