Anna Nicole Smith's Mother Blames Drugs

The mother of former Playboy playmate and model Anna Nicole Smith blamed drugs Friday for her daughter's sudden death that ended an extraordinary tabloid life at just 39.

"I think she had too many drugs, just like Danny (Smith's late son)," her mother, Vergie Arthur, told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday. "I tried to warn her about drugs and the people that she hung around with. She didn't listen."

"She was too drugged up," Arthur said. "By the last interview I saw of her, she was so wasted."

Smith's attorney, Ron Rale, said the one-time reality TV star had been ill for several days with a fever and was still depressed over the death five months ago of her 20-year-old son from what a private medical examiner determined was a combination of methadone and two antidepressants.

On Thursday, authorities say, a private nurse found Smith unconscious in her room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and called 911. A bodyguard performed CPR, Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger said, but Smith was declared dead at a hospital.

Late Thursday, sheriff's deputies carried out at least eight brown paper bags sealed with red evidence tape from Smith's hotel room.

Several detectives are reviewing the hotel surveillance tapes to see if they might provide a clue to what happened, Deputy Police Chief Michael Browne said Friday. He said they had interviewed everyone connected to the death and no one was under suspicion.

"Nothing about this death seems suspicious. We're not treating it that way," Browne said. "We're being very thorough. We're going to look at everything."

Edwina Johnson, chief investigator for the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office, said an autopsy was under way Friday morning to try to determine the cause of death.

If Smith died of natural causes, the findings will likely be announced quickly, but definitive results could take weeks, said Dr. Joshua Perper, who was performing the autopsy.