Friends and relatives who are fighting over where to bury Anna Nicole Smith went to the Broward County, Fla., medical examiner’s office Wednesday to view her body as nature imposed its own timetable on the legal wrangling.
Medical authorities have said that Smith’s embalmed body was deteriorating and urged a quick resolution to the legal dispute over where to bury Smith, who died Feb. 8.
The principals, including Smith’s last companion, Howard K. Stern, her mother, Virgie Arthur, and Larry Birkhead, one of the men who claim to be the father of Smith’s daughter, Dannielynn, visited the body during the lunch break.
Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin insisted he would rule by Friday on a petition brought by Stern to have Smith buried in the Bahamas near her son, Daniel, who died at age 20 of an apparent drug overdose Sept. 10.
Arthur wants to bury Smith in the family plot in Texas.
“The clocks are ticking,” Seidlin repeatedly reminded the lawyers Wednesday.
Smith’s mother testified Wednesday morning that her daughter wanted to be buried in California with the entertainment stars whose lives she sought to emulate.
Arthur attempted to bolster her case that she has the parental right to pick the reality-television star’s final resting place by describing a loving relationship with her daughter and painting a picture of a close family.
Arthur praised Birkhead, a photographer who claims he, and not Stern, is the father of Smith’s infant daughter. The men are fighting the paternity issues surrounding Dannielynn in California, where at least one other man has filed a paternity suit.
In her testimony, Arthur noted that Stern was around when the actress and Daniel died, implying that somehow he was responsible. At another point, Arthur accused Stern of trying to profit from the death of her daughter.
Stern testified Tuesday that Smith, 39, bought two double plots for herself and Daniel.
Stern returned Wednesday to the courtroom from the Bahamas, where he went Tuesday night to be with Dannielynn. The child cannot leave the Bahamas because of a court order brought by Arthur. Stern is listed as the child’s father on the birth certificate.
Complicating the case is the possibility that Smith’s estate could be very large. She married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. She had been fighting his family since Marshall’s death in 1995.
