Smith's mom says Stern makes her fear for baby's life

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (CNN) -- Anna Nicole Smith's mother said Wednesday that she's afraid for the safety of her 5-month-old granddaughter, Dannielynn, while the baby is in the care of Howard K. Stern, her late daughter's lawyer and companion.

In emotional testimony often interrupted by sobs, Virgie Arthur linked the deaths of Smith and her adult son, Daniel, to Stern.

"My grandson did not overdose," she told a hearing in Broward Circuit Court. "Howard was there when he died. And Howard was there when my daughter died. And he has my granddaughter now, and it's not even his child, and I'm afraid for her life as well. Please help us."

A somber Stern testified Tuesday that Smith was "everything to me" and Daniel was like a brother to him. He also has said he is the father of Dannielynn.

Arthur is battling Stern for custody of her daughter's body.

Arthur said her estrangement from her daughter only began after the former Playboy playmate met Stern.

She told the hearing that Smith was a tomboy as a child who loved frogs and made the family laugh.

"She loved life, even as she got older," Arthur said. "She wasn't estranged from me all those years. We were still in contact. It was when she got older, at the age when she met Howard Stern, that I started not being able to get hold of her or being able to talk to her, except every three or four months."

Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin interrupted Arthur's testimony briefly Wednesday for a conference call with the Broward County medical examiner, Dr. Joshua Perper, about the condition of Smith's body.

Paternity claims

Beyond the issue of who has the right to choose Smith's burial site, other complicated questions loom, involving Dannielynn's future and Smith's estate.

The stakes are huge -- perhaps $88 million or more. Smith's heir or heirs stand to inherit a stake in her longstanding claim to the $1.6 billion fortune of her late husband, Texas oil baron J. Howard Marshall II.

Stern is one of at least three men who claim to be Dannielynn's father. His name is on her birth certificate. He testified that he and Smith had planned to be married this week.

A former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, who also claims to be Dannielynn's father, attended Tuesday's hearing with a team of lawyers. One of them said Birkhead might testify on Arthur's behalf.

In her will, released Friday, Smith left everything to Daniel. She also named Stern as executor, according to the document dated July 30, 2001. The 16-page will was never updated, and does not mention Dannielynn, who was born in September.

pleadings021607v2.pdf anna nichole smith's will

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