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Originally published Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 12:00 AM

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Anna Nicole Smith was drinking heavily

Anna Nicole Smith's final days were a booze-fueled frenzy, according to workers at the hotel and casino in which she died. While an autopsy Friday...

New York Daily News

NEW YORK — Anna Nicole Smith's final days were a booze-fueled frenzy, according to workers at the hotel and casino in which she died.

While an autopsy Friday was inconclusive, witnesses say she was partying and falling-down drunk in the days before her death.

A bouncer at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla., where Smith, 39, died Thursday, said the model was drinking early Tuesday.

"I saw two guys walking her out. She was pretty much all trashed. She was messed up. She couldn't walk on her own," the bouncer said.

Just hours before she died, Smith was back at the Hard Rock's 24-hour Center Bar.

A bartender named Mike said Smith was tossing back double shots. "It looked like she was really, really drunk. She was slurring her speech. She looked plastered," he said.

A source told the tabloid Star Magazine that Smith's sixth-floor suite in the hotel looked like "a pharmacist's shop." The room was filled with prescription medication, including Xanax, Provigil, Vicodin and "a ... lot of methadone," Star reported.

On Friday, Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger said the hotel room contained "no illegal drugs, only prescription medicine," but he would not reveal the types of drugs or to whom they were prescribed. Tiger also said there was no evidence a crime had occurred.

Dr. Joshua Perper, Broward County medical examiner, said the autopsy excluded any physical injury, blunt-force trauma or asphyxia, meaning Smith didn't choke to death on her own vomit. "This is clearly a sudden, unexpected and unexplained death," he said.

The former Playboy Playmate had suffered from a stomach flu in the days before she died, Perper said, and did have "subtle" abnormalities in her heart and intestines that will need to be examined.

While she had no "intact" pills in her stomach, toxicology tests will need to be completed, lasting three to five weeks, Perper said.

Meanwhile, a third man — the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, Prince Frederic von Anhalt — said Friday he may be the father of Smith's infant daughter, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern.

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Two other men have claimed to be the father: attorney Howard Stern, Smith's most recent companion, and Larry Birkhead, a former boyfriend.

In connection with the paternity fight, a Los Angeles judge on Friday ordered that Smith's body be preserved until a Feb. 20 hearing in the case.

The baby was not with Smith when she died and was reportedly in the Bahamas.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.

Copyright © The Seattle Times Company

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