Stern: Smith wanted to be buried by son
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- Anna Nicole Smith wanted to be buried next to her son in the Bahamas, where she lived, her companion testified Tuesday in the latest round of legal battles surrounding the model's death.
Smith's boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, and her estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, were in a Florida court arguing what to do with her remains, while another hearing in California dealt with questions about the paternity of the former centerfold's infant daughter.
Stern testified Smith was adamant about burying her 20-year-old son, Daniel Smith, in the Bahamas, where he died just days after Smith's daughter was born there in September.
"Anna and Daniel were inseparable. Daniel was without question the most important person in Anna's life," Stern told Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin.
At Daniel's funeral, "she said 'If Daniel has to be buried, I want to be buried with him,'" Stern said.
Without written proof of Smith's own wishes, Judge Seidlin is forced to hear testimony from those who claim to know what Smith wanted.
Arthur wants Smith brought home to her native Texas, insisting that despite their estrangement, she has the right to bury her own daughter.
Paternity issue
In Los Angeles, Stern's lawyers also were arguing the paternity issue Tuesday with attorneys for Smith's ex-companion, Larry Birkhead, who says he fathered the girl. That hearing was closed to the public.
Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, has filed a separate paternity challenge to Stern's claim.
At the Florida hearing, Judge Seidlin first suggested to lawyers that he needed to know who the father was in order to decide the burial issue.
Ron Rale, an attorney for Smith who also is representing Stern in his paternity case, said that paternity is irrelevant to the burial question.
But after a brief private conference with all sides, he said he was going to try to answer the burial question without knowing that.
Since Smith's death Feb. 8 in Florida, the baby has been living with Stern in the Bahamas. The cause of Smith's death is under investigation. She was 39.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.