KEY POINTS:
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Lawyers for former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend and her mother jousted over her corpse today, making little headway in legal skirmishing over where she should be buried.
The fourth day of hearings before south Florida Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin meandered chaotically, and
the judge seemed determined to not only resolve where to bury Smith but also to take on a Californian paternity dispute over her 5-month-old baby -- the most likely heir of the billionaire's widow.
The former topless dancer's long-time attorney and partner, Howard K. Stern, told the court in soft-spoken testimony that Smith wanted to be buried next to her son, Daniel, who died five months ago in the Bahamas at the age of 20.
"She wanted to go down with Daniel right then," Stern testified in recounting Daniel Smith's burial in the Bahamas, where Smith and Stern had lived most recently. "She wanted to crawl inside that space where he was."
Stern said Smith had bought two pairs of burial plots, paying with a personal check. But he acknowledged he had signed the purchase contracts, saying Smith rarely ventured out of her Nassau mansion because of the swarms of paparazzi outside.
Seidlin was supposed to resolve whether to let Smith's body be released to Stern and buried in the Bahamas, or released to her estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, and buried in her native Texas.
But more may be at stake than the location of a tombstone.
Smith's estate could one day be worth half a billion dollars if a separate, decade-long courtroom battle to inherit the fortune of her ex-husband, oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall, prevails. So the question of who fathered 5-month-old Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern has taken centre stage.
Larry Birkhead, a former boyfriend, says he is the father while Stern is listed on the birth certificate as father of the child, who was born three days before Daniel died in Smith's hospital room, possibly because of a dangerous mix of drugs.
Smith's body -- famous in life for its abundant curves -- lay in a cold room for more than a week at the Broward Medical Examiner's Office after she died on Feb. 8 at a Florida casino hotel of unexplained causes, aged 39.
It was finally embalmed over the weekend after a struggle to find a funeral home willing to sign a confidentiality agreement. TV entertainment shows and tabloid publications have reportedly been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to anyone who can get them exclusive video footage of Smith.
"The body is now safe and secure," said Richard Millstein, a lawyer appointed by the court to look after the interests of the baby girl, Dannielynn.
Seidlin, whose Fort Lauderdale chambers are decorated with old movie posters, including the gold-digger classic, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," said his main concern was to protect the interests of the baby.
He evoked a future in which Dannielynn would take piano lessons and play tennis, and noted that she might one day see a video of the current hearings, which were being broadcast live and covered by scores of reporters.
"We want to say to her that we gave dignity and decorum to this proceeding," Seidlin said.
The proceedings, however, were erratic. The discussion veered off on wild tangents while attorneys shouted over each other. Much of Stern's testimony was hearsay, prompting vehement objections from Arthur's attorney because hearsay is not generally accepted in US courts.
One lawyer complained to Seidlin that the proceedings were turning into a circus.
"It's no circus any more," Seidlin retorted, saying he was now in charge. "Let's bring it on and let's get it down."
- REUTERS