Stern's testimony vital at Smith inquest

NASSAU, Bahamas, March 14 (UPI) -- Interest in Howard K. Stern's testimony in a Bahamian inquest into the death of Anna Nicole Smith's son, Daniel, is higher since she died, officials said.

Stern was the lawyer and companion of Smith, who died Feb. 8 in Florida of unknown causes. Florida officials said a cause of death should be announced soon.

Daniel Wayne Smith died, 20, at Sept. 10 while visiting his mother and newborn half-sister, Dannielynn, at Doctors Hospital in Nassau.

Chief Magistrate Roger Gomez, presiding over the March 26 inquest, said Smith's mother would have been a material witness.

"Her death has caused us to lose the weight of her evidence, but at the same time, it has also increased the interest in the inquest because of the way in which she died. She also died suddenly, her son died very suddenly," Gomez told the Bahamas Journal.

While the inquest's primary goal would be discovering the legal cause of the son's death, the court also will "look with interest at the cause of (Anna Nicole's) death as well."

Her death makes Stern's testimony critical because "he would have been the only other person present at the time," Gomez said.