Judge releases Anna Nicole Smith's body
Anna Nicole Smith was pronounced dead last Thursday
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Thursday, 15, Feb 2007 07:18
Anna Nicole Smith's body has been released by a Los Angeles judge, meaning the celebrity can now be given a burial.
Claims over the paternity of her five-month-old daughter Dannielyn were delaying a funeral, with attorneys for the alleged fathers requesting that the body be preserved in a morgue until DNA tests confirm or deny their paternity.
However, the superior court judge was recently told that enough DNA had been collected for the tests.
"There was no need to in any way delay this process. We want to have a proper burial . just out of respect for Anna Nicole," said her attorney Ronald Rale.
Ms Smith's partner and lawyer Howard Stern, whose name is on the birth certificate, claims to be the father of Dannielyn alongside former partner Larry Birkhead and Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband Prince Frederic Von Anhalt.
Most recently, her bodyguard Alex Denk has also claimed that he could be the father after exposing a two-year secret relationship.
Bizarrely, Anna Nicole's sister also thinks Dannielynn could be the result of the preserved sperm of the oil giant J. Howard Marshall who the former Playboy playmate controversially married in 1994.
Anna Nicole was found to be "unresponsive" in her Floridian hotel room on Thursday and was later pronounced dead in hospital, although it is not yet known what caused her death.
The reality television star, 39, lost her 20-year-old son Daniel in September to an overdose of Zoloft, Lexapro and methadone.
Dannielynn was born just three days before the death of Daniel.