Time Running Out On Anna Nicole Hearing

(CBS/AP)  A coroner said Tuesday that despite being embalmed, Anna Nicole Smith's body is deteriorating "much faster than expected."

During a hearing on what to do with her remains, Broward County Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper said via telephone that embalmers who embalmed Smith's body this weekend advised the viewing should be done this week.

"A delay in the next week might create a problem and the face of the deceased might show color changes," Perper said.

Smith's companion, Howard K. Stern, was on the witness stand when Perper's call interrupted the hearing. Stern looked visibly upset, lowering his head on his clasped hands as Perper's voice was heard in the court over a speaker phone.

Stern and Smith's estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, are in a Florida court arguing what to do with her remains, while another hearing in California deals with questions about the paternity of the former centerfold's infant daughter.

The hearing finished for the day by 5:00 p.m. and resumes Wednesday morning.

Under direct testimony Tuesday afternoon, Stern said he and Smith chose a commitment ceremony over a legal wedding because he was concerned about what people would think.

"Anna wanted our marriage to be a legal marriage," Stern said. "I was concerned that people would think that I was making a run for her money."

After the mysterious death of Smith's 20-year-old son, Stern was concerned that if he married Smith, people would think they did it so they wouldn't have to testify against one another in court.

2"Upon the advice of counsel, we didn't want to give any perception of wrongdoing," said Stern. "A coroner early on said the death was under suspicious circumstances, but later retracted that."

Stern said he later found out that his lawyer gave him the wrong advice, because under Bahamian law a husband and wife would still have to testify because Daniel's death happened before their marriage.

Stern's attorney also played raw footage of an interview with Stern and Smith from "Entertainment Tonight." In the October interview, Smith said she was upset that her mother publicly accused her and Stern of killing Daniel.

"First of all she's not my mother, she's my birth mother," Smith said. "Second of all she doesn't know me and she doesn't know my son. She hasn't seen my son since probably he was five years old."

Smith also said that she would never allow her mother near her daughter, Dannielynn. "I would never speak to her again, ever," she said. "She won't touch my child."

According to Stern, Anna Nicole Smith wanted to be buried next to her son in the Bahamas, where she lived. He said she 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.

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Anna Nicole Smith: The Latest Photos

Photos: Anna Nicole Smith

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At Daniel's funeral, "she said 'if Daniel has to be buried, I want to be buried with him,'" Stern said.

Stern said that her son's death in September forever changed Smith. "From the day Daniel died, in a lot of ways, Anna was never the same … she initially would not accept that Daniel was gone," he said.

Without written proof of Smith's own wishes, Seidlin is forced to hear testimony from those who claim to know what Smith wanted.

3Stern said that Smith had always talked about dying young and that, before her son's death in September, she had wanted to be buried near Marilyn Monroe.

"She was pretty much my whole world," Stern said of the model, with whom he said he had a working and intimate relationship. "She was my best friend, my love, the mother of my daughter … my world."

Stern said he and Smith began an intimate relationship in 2000 but that it was not exclusive.

Arthur wants Smith brought home to her native Texas, insisting that despite their estrangement, she has the right to bury her own daughter, not a man to whom Smith wasn't even married.

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, Seidlin first suggested to lawyers that he needed to know who the father was in order to decide the burial issue.

The judge asked Stern, to write the infant's name on a white poster board to illustrate his point. "In the center of this maze is Dannielynn," Seidlin said. He asked the court to consider, "What is in her best interests?"

Ron Rale, an attorney for Smith who also is representing Stern in his paternity case, said the baby's paternity is irrelevant to the burial question.

"You want to have your cake and eat it," Seidlin shot back.

But after a brief private conference with all sides, he said he was going to try to answer the burial question without knowing that.

"It would help the court if I knew who the natural father is to speak on behalf of Dannielynn," Seidlin said. "Right now, the moment's not right."

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.

Smith was the widow of Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, whom she married in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. She had been fighting his family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995.

[jeanise55]

ANNA LED A VERY SAD LIFE, OF ALL THOSE PEOPLE COMING FORWARD NOW NONE OF THEM INTERVENED IN THIS WOMAN'S LIFE AND TOOK HER TO TREATMENT AND MADE HER STAY, NO, SHE WAS A MONEY MAKER. THIS WOMAN WAS SO HIGH SHE DID NOT EVEN KNOW SHE WAS ALIVE, I DO BELEIVE SHE WANTED TO BE BURIED BESIDE HER SON I DO NOT THINK SHE WANTED HER FINAL RESTING PLACE TO BE IN TEXAS A PLACE SHE LEFT AND NEVER WANTED TO LIVE AGAIN. THIS IS SO SAD I KNOW HER SON FINALLY HAS SOME PEACE FROM HER. SHE WAS SO NEEDY. SUCH A SAD ENDING.

[szelag19]

The judge in this case reminds me of the judge preceded over the OJ case,he wants his 15 minutes of fame and that's a *** shame. If this woman bought a grave site next to her son in the Bahama's it does not take an Eistein to figure this out...these people make me sick..especially the old lady..with her crocodile tears and her phony grief.No wonder Anna was so screwed up..look what raised her..they have Anna on tape saying she hated the old lady.Let Howard take care of Anna in death..he's the only one that genuinely cared for her in life..those blood suckers don't realize that Anna's money will be tied up in probate court until the baby's an adult...mommie dearest needs to go back to Mexia and take the rest of those losers with her..

[kpbkpb]

She's dead--nothing will change it. Her life is being tattered into a billion pieces. What does she have to show for that life--one tiny little baby, now everyone wants a piece of her. Stern did live off her--became his focus in life. Who knows if there were genuine feelings on either side or if he was a willing participant in helping Anna keep Birkhead away from the child. Maybe she didn't know who the father is. But for the classless Prince(less)to make such a public fool of Zsa Zsa. True Anna wanted to be well known, but not like this. She needed help and I truly believe Stern enabled her with drugs--just so she would keep him around. What comes around goes around Howard!

[psolis4]

Anna had Stern around for a reason, and put him down as the father on the B-certificate. Why wouldn't she have a will written beforehand, just in case you die!!?? She could have avoided all this for the people she loved. And her mother, Nicole didn't stay away from her for nothing... The Beeaaatch needs to stay the f**** out of this...

[apdepetris]

These people are awful. Everyone wants custody of this child because they want to jump on the gravy train and get whatever money Anna Nicole had as well as anything she might get in the court battle over her late husband's estate.

And her mother fighting over her decomposing body - disgusting. Anna Nicole had been estranged from her family for years. If her mother cared for her at all she would drop all of this and let them bury Anna in the Bahamas.

Do the stinking paternity test and give the baby to the father. Bury Anna Nicole in the Bahamas next to her son and be done with all this nonsense. Stop wasting time and money on such ridiculous things.

[mgpm-2009]

this seems so simple to me.

Any mother would want to be buried next to her son. Anna's mom is no kind of "mom" if she wants to bring her back to Texas and away from her son Daniel. Anna made the choice to bury Daniel in the Bahamas. Anna bought a plot for herself in the Bahamas. Clearly she wanted to be buried there herself. Why does Virgie Arthur want her in Texas then?

The matter of paternity is easy in this day and age. DNA. Do it. Then it's over.

This whole thing isn't as hard as these people are making it.

Actually, poor Dannielyn would probably be better off given to some childless couple looking to adopt, and forgetting all the money and hoopla. Money, fame and drugs were disasterous for her mom and brother, sadly. I wish that little one a normal healthy life.

[twinklinstar]

If Stern was "really" the father he would be first in line to get a paternity test done so he could get everyone off his back. He obviously doesn't know who the father is either. No one will know unless tests are done.

[cbgb31]

Anna Was "My Whole World," Stern Says

Well, of course she was. She was his money making machine. What a p1mp.

[shanev137]

can you imagine having to be the journalists/people getting paid to follow this trash story around and being judged on how well written their articles are about her decomposed body, prostitution money, and which of the ten guys she was simultaneously *** was the father of her daughter? people who clean public toilets for a living have better jobs.

[cathaleen]

What a shame. Everyone, including her mother, is in the courtroom because they want her money.
If she was poor, she would be buried in potters field. What a circus! Also, who is paying for all the lawyers?