Bid to have Anna Nicole's son exhumed

Anna Nicole Smith’s estranged mother told a judge tonight she wants to exhume her grandson – buried in the Bahamas – and bring his body to Texas to be buried along with his starlet mother in her home state.

Ms Smith’s long-time companion, Howard Stern, is fighting for the former Playboy centrefold to be buried next to her son in the island chain, where he died from apparent drug-related causes last year.

On the second day of testimony in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, judge Larry Seidlin indicated the best result would be a compromise – and soon – since the medical examiner again warned that Ms Smith’s body was decomposing more quickly than expected and a public viewing could be in danger.

“When you walked into the court, you hope to get everything,” Mr Seidlin said. “We will try to fashion a remedy where not everyone gets everything they want.”

Ms Smith died on February 8, aged 39. Her cause of death is under investigation.

Without written proof of her wishes, Mr Seidlin was forced to hear evidence from those who claim to know what she wanted.

Also at issue in a California court is who fathered Smith’s 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn, who could inherit millions of dollars. Mr Stern is listed as the father on the birth certificate, but a photographer who once dated Smith says the girl is his.

Smith’s mother, Virgie Arthur, testified that although she had not seen her daughter since 1996, they spoke on the phone more frequently. She cried as she spoke about her relationship with Ms Smith and her 20-year-old grandson’s death.

She also disputed Stern’s claim yesterday that Smith was always obsessed with her own death and expected to die young, just like her hero, Marilyn Monroe, who was 36 when she died in 1962.

“You can’t make me believe that. She was too full of life. She loved life,” she said.

Yesterday, Ms Arthur had testified that drugs soured her relationship with her daughter. Arthur said the two talked only every few months and that Nicole often called her in the middle of the night sounding “drugged.”

Ms Arthur’s attorney, John O’Quinn, said on CBS television today that Mr Stern caused Ms Smith’s drug problems, and that she was “egged on to say things sensational” about her relationship with her mother.

Stern earlier testified that Ms Smith never recovered from her son’s death. He said a grief-stricken Nicole threw herself over his body as he lay in a coffin in the Bahamas, wailing, “If Daniel has to be buried, I want to buried with him.”

Mr Stern’s lawyer Krista Barth said she had bank documentation proving Ms Smith had agreed to pay for two cemetery plots in Nassau. She showed a TV interview in which Smith expressed hatred for her estranged mother.

“This whole case is based on fraud, fraud, fraud perpetrated by Stern so he can always control everything and make money off of Anna,” Mr O’Quinn said.

Ms Smith was the widow of Texas oil tycoon J Howard Marshall. The two married in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. He died in 1995.