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Court rules on Anna Nicole burial

01/03/2007

Anna Nicole Smith looks set to be buried in the Bahamas following the latest court ruling which appears to have ended the wrangling over where the former Playboy model and reality TV star should be laid to rest.

A Florida appeals court yesterday rejected a request from her estranged mother to overturn an earlier ruling which had said that Anna Nicole should be buried alongside her late son Daniel in the Bahamas.

Virgie Arthur had wanted to take her daughter's body back to her home state of Texas, but her lawyer indicated last night that she did not intend to challenge yesterday's ruling.

"It's going to be difficult to appeal the ruling, so we're not going to appeal," Tom Pirtle was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

The court appointed guardian for Anna Nicole's five-month-old daughter Dannielynn has now said that funeral arrangements are being made for a service in the Bahamas on Friday, with Richard Milstein having been granted custody of the model's body.

Meanwhile, the legal dispute over the paternity of Dannielynn continues following the death of her mother, who was found to be "unresponsive" in her Floridian hotel room on February 8th and was later pronounced dead in hospital at the age of 39.

A court in Fort Lauderdale yesterday ordered DNA samples to be taken from Anna Nicole's body and given to lawyers for her ex-boyfriend, photographer Larry Birkhead, who claims that he, rather than the model's long-term love Howard K Stern, is Dannielynn's father.

The tot, born just three days before the death of her brother Daniel, could inherit millions if judges order that the fortune of Anna Nicole's late husband, J Howard Marshall, should be given over to his wife's estate. Anna Nicole had been fighting the oil tycoon's family for his legacy since his death in 1995.


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