Smith's Son Wanted No Part of Fame

Jan 30, 06:14 PM

Ford Shelley, the son-in-law of a developer who was embroiled in an ownership dispute over the estate where Anna Nicole lived in the Bahamas before her fatal Feb. 8 overdose, described Daniel Smith as a "brilliant" young man who was "living in a shell" due to his mother's fame.

"He wanted to break free," Shelley said. "He loved his mother but didn't want to be known as her son."

Daniel Smith died Sept. 10, 2006, while visiting his mother three days after she gave birth to her daughter, Dannielynn, in the Bahamian capital of Nassau.

Shelley, who testified that Anna Nicole kept her drugs in a duffel bag, said he saw prescription bottles - including the painkiller methadone in pill and liquid form - made out to at least four different aliases when he unpacked her luggage during a trip she made to South Carolina to visit developer G. Ben Thompson, a former boyfriend.

Earlier in the day, the lab director for the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner's Office testified that a large dose of methadone taken by Daniel Smith was the primary factor behind his death.

Originally published by Associated Press .

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