Appeals Hearing Over Smith's Body Under Way
Ruling On DNA Expected Wednesday
POSTED: 9:01 am EST February 28, 2007
UPDATED: 9:07 am EST February 28, 2007
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The Anna Nicole Smith hearings bounced back to Florida on Wednesday, where an appeals court was considering a request by the Playboy model's mother to let her bury her daughter in Texas.
A Florida judge last week turned the burial decision over to a court-appointed advocate for Smith's infant daughter, and the advocate said Smith would be buried next to her son in the Bahamas. Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, appealed.
Both sides were expected to argue their cases in court Wednesday morning.
Attorneys for Smith's boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, say Arthur is trying to "place her in death where she never wanted to be in life." Arthur's attorneys say the mother is the "legally recognized person" to bury her. If the court rules against Arthur, the child's advocate has said Smith's funeral could take place as early as Thursday.
Smith, 39, died in a Florida hotel Feb. 8, but her body has remained at a medical examiner's office because of the dispute.
Her baby daughter, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, is living in a gated, waterfront home in the Bahamas, where a judge is hearing the child custody dispute between Stern and Arthur.
On Tuesday, Arthur saw the little girl for the first time and left the home in tears.
"She's in mourning having lost her daughter and grandson both within the last five months," said her attorney, Deborah Rose. Smith's son, Daniel, died last fall in the Bahamas just a few days after Dannielynn's birth. Smith and Stern were living in the Bahamas at the time, and Daniel, 20, is buried there.
Rose said Arthur's permission for the visit with Dannielynn did not come from the court, but she declined to say who had authorized it. Arthur was in the Bahamas for a hearing Tuesday that Rose described as a "small technical procedure."
"Our objective is really to assist our client in having access to her granddaughter and foremost to ensure the best interests and welfare of the child are secured," Rose said.
The baby's paternity is also in dispute, and another Florida judge was expected to rule Wednesday on a request for DNA.
Stern is listed on her birth certificate, but two other men also claim to be the father. Los Angeles photographer Larry Birkhead, Smith's ex-boyfriend, wants a Fort Lauderdale court to enforce a California judge's orders so he can get DNA samples from Smith's body and the baby. Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, also says he may be the father.
A medical examiner has yet to determine Smith's cause of death. Toxicology results could take up to two more weeks.
Smith married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. The reality TV star and Playboy Playmate had been fighting his family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995, and her baby daughter could inherit millions.
http://www.wsbtv.com/entertainment/11133798/detail.html
The fact that both Virgie and Larry got to see the baby JUST PREVIOUS to this hearing is two notches in the halo of Saint Howard. I'm sure the point will be made of his goodness in the matter. Hopefully, the judges will think: "Do you think we're stupid?"