Smith’s Body Could Be Released From Morgue Soon
Posted February 14, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Two judges on opposite sides of the U.S. are at odds over when Anna Nicole Smith’s body should be released to her loved ones for burial.
A Florida judge ordered the morgue storing the remains of the former Playboy Playmate, who died last Thursday in her Hollywood, Florida hotel room, to hold onto them for now as a custody battle rages over the paternity of her infant daughter. In his ruling, Circuit Judge Lawrence Korda cited a California court order from Friday that a DNA test should be taken from Smith’s body.
But a justice in Los Angeles quickly lifted the request that the body be held. James Neavitt said Florida officials who performed an autopsy on Smith preserved her DNA at the time.
“California has no need for the body of Anna Nicole,” Neavitt said. He’s acting as an attorney for Howard K. Stern, one of several men claming to be the father of five-month-old Dannielynn. Stern’s name is on the little girl’s birth certificate, and it’s believed he and Smith were planning to marry later in the month.
Korda had ordered the body be held for 10 days after meeting with lawyers for another man claiming to be Dannielynn’s dad – photographer Larry Birkhead. Birkhead dated Smith before she began the romantic relationship with Stern, her former lawyer. His representatives raised fears that accurate DNA testing wouldn’t be possible if the body was moved out of state.
“We would just want … to proceed with a proper burial,” said Ron Rale, the attorney who had represented Smith in the California court battle over paternity.
Yet another judge has something to say about the case – a justice in the Bahamas ordered an injunction Tuesday that would prevent Dannielynn from being removed from the country until the custody matter is concluded. She’s currently staying with a friend of Smith’s.
Smith’s mother, Vergie Arthur, has reportedly asked to be named guardian of her granddaughter. She’s said to be concerned about the little girl’s safety given that Stern was present when Smith died and when Smith’s son Daniel passed away in the fall, only days after Dannielynn’s birth.
But Stern has suggested that Smith hated her mother and that giving Dannielynn to her would be the last thing the 39-year-old former model would have wanted.
Smith died on February 8 after collapsing at her hotel. She was the widow of oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, and following his death she fought the family over his fortune.
Dannielynn now stands to inherit millions from her mother’s estate.
A third man also claims to be her father – Prince Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, said he had an affair with Smith for a decade. He also planned to file a paternity challenge in court.
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