Anna Nicole Smith case 'was nuts,' DNA expert says

Michael Baird, who is director of an Ohio lab, has worked on other high-profile cases.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- The court-appointed DNA expert who told the world that photographer Larry Birkhead was the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby has testified in more than 500 trials.
He helped explain the DNA evidence on television during the trial of O.J. Simpson.
But nothing was like the clamor for first word on the father of Smith's baby.
"We've worked on a lot of high-profile cases, but none ever reached the level of craziness of this one," Michael Baird said Friday. "I felt like I was in a hurricane. People were throwing microphones in your face. It was nuts."
The lab work was the easy part, pretty much like thousands of other cases he's handled, Baird said. The hard part left to a Bahamian court is deciding who gets to raise 7-month-old Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern and what happens in Smith's fight for an estimated 500 million from the estate of her late husband.
"Our role in this is over," said Baird, laboratory director of the DNA Diagnostic Center in Fairfield, just north of Cincinnati. "What happens with custody and the estate, that's going to take a long time to resolve."
Loves his job
The gag order that barred Baird from talking about one of the most famous paternity tests ever was lifted when he delivered his findings Tuesday. He's relieved to be able to talk about what he does.
"It's pretty cool stuff. I've been having fun with it for 20 years," Baird said. "It makes you proud of what you do. It puts the spotlight on the technology."
Baird originally was hired by Birkhead, Smith's former boyfriend, to help establish that Birkhead was the father of her baby. Lawyer Howard K. Stern, Smith's companion when she died of an accidental drug overdose in February, was listed on the birth certificate as the baby's father and he wanted to use a different expert.
A judge held a hearing in March to hear both claims. Stern's expert didn't show up.
"I was appointed as the court's expert," Baird said. "As such, I didn't work for either side. I worked for the court."
Tests showed with 99.9999 percent certainty that Birkhead was the father, Baird said.
Professional background
Baird has been lab director at DNA Diagnostics since 2002, and before that spent 20 years with Connecticut-based Lifecodes Corp., which did similar work. He was NBC's studio analyst hired to explain DNA testing in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
DNA Diagnostics Center has done paternity tests for expos & eacute; shows such as Maury Povich's and helped determine identities of Hurricane Katrina victims. It is one of the world's largest private providers of paternity tests -- performing more than 850,000 DNA tests of all kinds in the past 12 years -- yet mostly keeps a low profile.
"DDC maintains strict operating standards that ensure our client's confidentiality with each case," said spokesman Jim Hanigan. "It's very rare that we are able to talk about a case, which is a personal matter for many. We're only able to talk about this [Anna Nicole] case now because of how it played out in the media."
What about the cost of establishing the paternity of Smith's baby? Pretty much the same as any other paternity test, about 475, not counting the expense of numerous trips to gather DNA samples and to testify in the Bahamas, Baird said.
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