Anna Nicole Fray Moves To Baby

The melodramatic legal fallout from Anna Nicole Smith's death shifted Friday from where to bury the former Playboy Playmate to who gets custody of her baby, who could inherit millions.

Attorneys for Larry Birkhead, the photographer who claims to have fathered 5-month-old Dannielynn, asked a Florida family court judge to enforce a California court's order that the infant's DNA be tested to prove paternity.

Smith's boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, and Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, also claim to be the father. Stern is listed as Dannielynn's father on the birth certificate.

Circuit Judge Lawrence Korda doubted Friday that he had jurisdiction to get involved in the paternity dispute and seemed at a loss as to how the case had landed in his court. He ended the hearing by telling Birkhead's lawyers he would discuss the matter with a California judge and give a ruling "pretty soon."

Korda's suggestion was that the case move to the Bahamas where he thinks jurisdiction lies.

On Thursday, a sometimes blubbering judge gave Richard Milstein, the court-appointed lawyer for Dannielynn, the power to resolve a dispute between Stern and Virgie Arthur, Smith's estranged mother, over where to bury Smith.

Milstein said she would be buried in the Bahamas next to her son, but gave no time frame.

The Broward County medical examiner, Dr. Joshua Perper, who was present in the courtroom, will assist Milstein in the disposition of the body.

"Everyone is to work equally and together and all the parties are in agreement that Anna deserves the best and the privacy the she sought," said Debra Opri, an attorney for Larry Birkhead.

The ruling came a full two weeks after Smith died at a Florida hotel at age 39 of still-undetermined causes.

Arthur planned to appeal the decision and criticized the judge's scene-stealing antics in the courtroom.

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Anna Nicole Smith: Who's Who

Photos: A Decision Made

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Anna Nicole's mother and the two men still fighting for the right to call themselves Dannielynn's father walked out of the courtroom side by side, even finishing each other's sentences.

They all promised a private, dignified funeral in the Bahamas for Anna Nicole. But don't expect this to be the last word. There are likely to be appeals.

Also on The Early Show Friday, Roy Black, a defense attorney based in Florida, applauded Seidlin's decision, but added, "It took him a long journey to get there over five or six days."

2Co-anchor Hannah Storm noted that there have been reports that Seidlin wants his own courtroom TV show and asked Black if he thinks Seidlin conducted a proper, legal proceeding.

"I didn't think there was any way you could top Wednesday," Black replied, "but Thursday was so far over the top, it was unbelievable.

"Since when do you have a judge taking the bench, giving a half-an-hour speech, a lawyer fainting and fall over?" he continued. "Then the judge crying at the verdict. Then everybody holding hands on the way out and then Virgie filing an appeal? It's the final segment, maybe not even the final segment, of the Anna Nicole reality show."

As for Anna Nicole's mother, Black told Storm he doesn't think "they had a case to begin with. Everybody who looked at these proceedings knew she hated her mother, hadn't talked to her in 10 years and had no interest in having her take care of her body. Even said she wouldn't let her visit her grandchild. Everybody knew the mother was going to lose on this."

Black said he hopes the paternity squabble is more easily settled.

"All you need is a swab from the child to determine the DNA," he said. "It's a simple proceeding. That should resolve paternity. However, remember, we're dealing with the Bahamas, Florida, California. Who knows where it's going to end up?"

3Birkhead testified that when he visited the Bahamas home Smith and Stern shared last year, he became increasingly concerned about her drug use.

"You don't know how many times I had to help her … they kept bringing more and more drugs in the house," he said, adding that Stern told him that Smith needed the prescriptions to live. "I was telling her and I was also telling Mr. Stern that it was a problem."

Birkhead said he suggested she enter drug rehabilitation, but that she told him: "I'm not a drug addict, and quit calling me one."

Smith married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II 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.