Virgie had wanted to bury Anna Nicole in her native Texas but Howard insisted the former Playboy Playmate wanted to be buried next to Daniel.

Model ’would not want Texas burial’ - Feb 28 2007
Lawyers for Anna Nicole Smith’s boyfriend told an appeals court that her estranged mother was trying to "place her in death where she never wanted to be in life" -- Texas.

Smith’s mother appealed against a Florida judge’s ruling that left the decision on the Playboy model’s burial to a court-appointed advocate for her five-month-old daughter Dannielynn.

The child’s advocate, Richard Milstein, has said he would bury Smith in the Bahamas, beside her 20-year-old son.

In an earlier court filing, he noted that "every witness including (her mother Virgie) Arthur testified that Anna Nicole Smith expressed an interest in being buried in either California or the Bahamas."

Arthur wants her daughter buried in her native Texas and argued in the appeal that the mother is the "legally recognised person" to take the remains. Her lawyer Roberta Mandel said she was willing to take the fight to the Florida Supreme Court if necessary.

Stern’s lawyers filed their response. "This case presents the tragic circumstances of Anna Nicole Smith’s untimely death and the sad irony of her estranged birth mother’s efforts to place her in death where she never wanted to be in life," they wrote to the three-judge appellate panel.

Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin last week gave the custody of Smith’s body to the advocate for Smith’s baby daughter and urged him to have Smith laid to rest next to her son, who died last autumn and is buried in the Bahamas.

In the midst of the court frenzy, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern is living in the Bahamas, where Smith lived with Stern until her death on February 8 at the age of 39.

A judge in the Bahamas, where custody of the little girl is in dispute, scheduled a March hearing in that case.

Stern and two other men claim they are Dannielynn’s father, and Arthur also wants custody. A lawyer for Los Angeles-based photographer Larry Birkhead indicated after that DNA tests were expected, but she would not elaborate.

Anna Nicole to be buried in Bahamas - Feb 23 2007
Tragic former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith will be laid to rest in the Bahamas next to her son, it was announced last night.

The decision came after a ruling in the court battle over the blonde’s body that denied custody to both her partner Howard Stern and her estranged mother Virgie Arthur.

Instead, a weeping Judge Larry Seidlin handed responsibility to the lawyer appointed as the guardian of the late star’s five-month-old daughter Dannielynn - but said he hoped she would be buried in Nassau.

He had been urged to come to a speedy decision in the case amid fears that the starlet’s body was decomposing so quickly that it might soon be unfit for viewing.