For just over 18 months now, the question on everyone's lips has been 'Did Anna Nicole Smith's son commit suicide or die accidentally?'

OK, that wasn't a question that was on anyone's lips, since the sole sum of public knowledge about Daniel Smith is that he sometimes looked quite embarrassed when Anna Nicole Smith dragged him in front of the cameras on her reality TV show.

However, the inquest into Daniel Smith's death has revealed that an accidental drug overdose killed him. Truly Daniel Smith was the Heath Ledger of September 2006, albeit a Heath Ledger who wasn't in any films and had a bit of a slutty mum.

Daniel Smith always seemed like a bit of an afterthought in the Anna Nicole Smith story. Perhaps that's because every time that anyone thought of a perpetually-cringing teenage son hovering around, Anna Nicole instantly lapsed from being 'sexy and eccentric' to 'slaggy and dangerously irresponsible'. 

Even Daniel Smith's death was overshadowed by the near-simultaneous birth of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter. True, baby Dannielynn was named after Daniel, but when your entire legacy consists of a oddly-spelt infant's name it can't be all that great. No wonder Daniel Smith killed himself.  

Except that Daniel Smith didn't kill himself. Well, he did, but not on purpose. That's what the jury at an inquest into the death of Daniel Smith discovered anyway. 13 months after Anna Nicole Smith died, 19 months after he himself died and 18 months after it was announced that he died of a drug overdose, the inquest in the Bahamas has ruled Daniel Smith's death as an accidental overdose. Reuters reports:

Tabloid star Anna Nicole Smith's son Daniel died of a drug overdose, an inquest jury in the Bahamas ruled on Monday. The seven-member jury took 73 minutes to reach its unanimous verdict after coroner William Campbell had directed them to return one of three options. He said they could decide 20-year-old Daniel Smith died of "non-dependent abuse of drugs," or by "accident or misadventure," or they could return an open verdict.

73 minutes doesn't seem like a very long time to pass judgement a young man's untimely death, especially a boy who used to get caught stealing his mother's methadone, but at least it's over. Daniel Smith is now with Anna Nicole Smith in scary clownface heaven where Anna Nicole can feed Daniel as much Ecstasy as she likes without worrying that he'll die from it, what with him already being dead and all.

And with Daniel Smith's death all wrapped up, that means that this will absolutely be the last piece of news about Anna Nicole Smith that you will ever hear. For at least three days.

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Anna Nicole's son died of drug overdose, jury says – Reuters