Lawyers for former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend and her mother jousted over her corpse on Tuesday, making little headway in legal skirmishing over where she should be buried. The fourth day of hearings before south Florida Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin meandered erratically, and the judge seemed determined at times to not only resolve where to bury Smith but also to take on a Californian paternity dispute over her baby daughter -- the most likely heir of the billionaire's widow.| The former topless dancer's long-time attorney and partner, Howard K. Stern, told the court that Smith wanted to be buried next to her son, Daniel, who died five months ago in the Bahamas at the age of 20. "She wanted to go down with Daniel right then," Stern testified. |
Stern said Smith had bought two pairs of burial plots. But he acknowledged he had signed the purchase contracts, saying Smith rarely ventured out of her Nassau mansion because of the swarms of paparazzi outside. Seidlin was supposed to resolve whether to let Smith's body be released to Stern and buried in the Bahamas, or released to her estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, and buried in her native Texas.