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Smith's Mother Fears for Baby's Life

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 February 2007, 15:00 CST

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Anna Nicole Smith's mother says she is afraid for the safety of her granddaughter in the custody of Howard K. Stern.

"I knew she would be next. My grandson did not overdose. Howard was there when he died, and Howard was there when my daughter died. And he has my granddaughter now and it is not even his child. I'm afraid for her life as well," a crying Vergie Arthur said. "Please, help us."

Stern shook his head. Earlier in Arthur's testimony, he angrily rose from his seat, but Judge Larry Seidlin interrupted him before he could complete a sentence.

"You have no podium here, Mr. Stern," the judge said. "Appreciate you being here, though."

Since taking the stand Tuesday afternoon, Arthur had answered most questions directly, but when attorneys asked her if she had profited from her daughter's death, her demeanor changed. She frequently said no to questions about arrangements with specific media outlets, but also often said she didn't understand or sidestepped inquiries altogether.

"Have you in any fashion profited at all from the death of your daughter?" asked Krista Barth, an attorney for Stern.

Arthur stared for a moment. "I'm trying to process that question," she said.

Then Arthur pointed at Stern. "He has," she said. It was a refrain Arthur repeated several times.

Arthur tearfully acknowledged that her daughter last told her she wanted to be buried in California, testimony that could hurt the woman's fight to put the starlet in a family plot in Texas.

Arthur said her last conversation with her daughter about her burial came more than 10 years ago, when Smith said she wanted to be interred near her idol Marilyn Monroe.

"Wherever the stars are buried, that's where she wanted to be buried," said Arthur, who had to stop several times on the stand when she was overcome with emotion.

Seidlin indicated earlier Wednesday that he wanted to broker a compromise between Arthur and Stern, the lawyer who had been Smith's companion for many years and wants her buried in the Bahamas next to her son.

Arthur said she believed any mother would want to be buried with her children. But she said Smith's 20-year-old son Daniel, who died of apparent drug-related causes last year, would be accommodated too.

"I'm going to go get his body and bring him back home" to Texas, she said.

The Florida hearing is just one part of the legal battle surrounding Smith.

At issue in a California court is who fathered her 5-month-old daughter Dannielynn, who could inherit millions of dollars depending on how Smith's estate is broken up. Stern is listed as the father on the birth certificate but photographer Larry Birkhead, who once dated Smith, says the girl is his.

Seidlin was issued yet another warning from Broward County's chief medical examiner, Dr. Joshua Perper, who said little time remains before Smith's body is too decomposed for a public viewing. Seidlin promised a ruling by Friday morning.

Deterioration begins at the moment of death, and embalming only slows the process, so the body could have unsightly marks.

As lawyers and spectators alike have grown to expect, there were comical moments, too. Seidlin mistakenly referred to Perper as "Dr. Pepper." Arthur asked if she could "plead the fifth" on her age. And when the judge asked the mother about her experience in law enforcement, he counseled, "You got your pension already, you can tell me a little bit."

Smith died Feb. 8 in a Florida hotel, but the cause is still unknown. She was the widow of Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II. The two married 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.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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