Stern: Anna Wanted to Die With Her Son

Feb. 20, 2007 — -- Anna Nicole Smith "thought she was going to die young" and wanted to be buried in the Bahamas next to her deceased son. That was the testimony of Smith's companion, Howard K. Stern, Tuesday in a Florida probate court charged with determining who will take control of Smith's remains.

In an unexpected development while Stern was on the stand, Broward County medical examiner Dr. Joshua Perper called the courtroom to report that Smith's body was deteriorating faster than expected. This puts increased pressure on Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin to settle disposition of Smith's body this week.

Stern is in a legal battle with Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, over where Smith will be laid to rest. Arthur wants to take Smith's remains to Texas for burial while Stern insists that Smith wanted to be laid to rest in the Bahamas. When Arthur took the stand on Tuesday, she testified that her relationship with her daughter soured when Smith started using drugs. Her testimony continues on Wednesday.

Fourteen attorneys representing various parties in the matter responded to Seidlin's roll call this morning, jamming the proceedings with a slew of advocates, arguments and objections.

With no legal documentation of Smith's wishes, Seidlin will rely in part on testimony to determine which party has standing to take control of Smith's remains.

Stern -- one of the men who claims paternity of Smith's infant daughter, Dannielynn -- told the court that Smith was "my best friend, my lover, the mother of my daughter, everything to me, literally my whole world."

Smith's former boyfriend Larry Birkhead, who also has a pending paternity claim for Smith's daughter, was in the courtroom and is expected to testify on Wednesday. It's the first time that Stern, Arthur and Birkhead have been together since Smith's death on Feb. 8.

Stern testified that Smith had a very close relationship with her deceased son, Daniel. "Anna and Daniel were inseparable. Daniel was without question the most important person in Anna's life," Smith said. "From the day that Daniel died, Anna honestly was never the same. I mean, I would say that physically she died last week, but in a lot of ways, emotionally, she died when Daniel died."

Stern claimed that Smith instructed him to look into various burial options for herself and Daniel, including a mausoleum, a plot near Marilyn Monroe's remains in California, and into the security of a ground burial protected from bug infestation, because Smith and her son were both afraid of bugs.

According to Stern, Smith decided in favor of two double plots situated side by side in the Bahamas, where Daniel was laid to rest and where "she wanted to be as well."

Stern testified that Smith had great difficulty accepting her 20-year-old son's untimely death. "She didn't want to believe that Daniel was dead, even at the funeral. … She had the people open the casket and she was just inconsolable and hugging Daniel and grabbing onto him and she wanted to go down with Daniel right then. She said if Daniel has to be buried, I want to be buried with him."