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Video: 18 lawyers in Ann Nicole courtroom
Updated 16:22pm on 22 Feb 2007There were 18 lawyers in court as the scrabble over Anna Nicole Smith's remains intensifed.
Her mother, partner and former boyfriend each took the stand in Florida for a face-off over who will get to bury the model.
Smith, who died aged 39 two weeks ago, inherited $474m (£243m) after the death of her oil tycoon husband J Howard Marshall in 1995.
Her partner, Howard K Stern, wants to put Smith with her son in a Bahamas cemetery while mother Virgie Arthur, supported by ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead, wants to bury her in a family plot in Texas.
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Lawyers for Stern were also set to argue in Los Angeles with those for Smith's former companion over who is the father of her infant daughter, Dannielynn.
No immediate ruling on the burial question is expected from Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin, who has ordered Stern to appear in court.
"We're trying to balance the rights and respect of a body that wants peace and tranquility," Seidlin said last week.
The former Playboy playmate and tabloid fixture died in Florida on February 8 at age 39. The cause of death is under investigation.
Without written proof of Smith's own wishes, Seidlin will be forced to hear testimony from those who claim to know what Smith wanted.
"This is very important to me to carry out what Anna Nicole wanted," Stern said.
Stern had been in seclusion until he emerged from a waterfront Bahamas mansion on Tuesday morning, but he did not speak to reporters as he left for the airport for the trip to Florida.
The mother had a perhaps unlikely ally in Larry Birkhead, Smith's ex-boyfriend, who delayed a decision on the star's burial by fighting for another DNA sample he hopes will prove he is his baby's father.
But Stern has allies of his own. A bodyguard, doctor, neighbour and friend all have submitted affidavits claiming Smith told them she wanted to be buried next to her son.
And Stern has provided invoices showing the purchase of burial plots in the Bahamas.
Arthur insists, despite her estrangement, she has the right to bury her own daughter, not a man to whom Smith was not married.
"Since the dawn of civilization, the next of kin has been given the rights and responsibility of their dead," says her lawyer, Stephen Tunstall.
In Los Angeles, the dispute over who is the father of 5-month-old Dannielynn was scheduled to be taken up in a closed-door hearing.
Stern is named father on the girl's birth certificate, but Birkhead and Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, have filed a separate paternity challenges.
