A Florida court was today hearing evidence in an escalating legal battle for the body of Anna Nicole Smith, who died last week in a casino hotel room.

Smith’s partner Howard K Stern is vying for control of the remains with the former Playboy model’s estranged mother and Larry Birkhead, who claims to be the father of her five-month-old daughter Dannielynn.

In the second emergency hearing of the case, Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin said that the “overriding issue” was Dannielynn’s welfare.

Yesterday, Mr Seidlin warned that the dispute could be lengthy. He said: “We’re going to have hearings – as many hearings as we need. This is just a warm-up.”

Meanwhile, Broward County medical examiner Joshua Perper warned that Smith’s corpse was decomposing and should be released.

Stern says he is executor of Smith’s will and wants to have her buried next to her son in the Bahamas. Daniel Smith, 20, died in September while visiting Smith and his baby sister in hospital. A post-mortem examination found that he died after mixing methadone, the treatment for heroin addiction, and anti-depressants.

Smith’s mother, Vergie Arthur, wants her daughter buried in her home state of Texas.

Birkhead’s legal team has said that Smith’s DNA is needed to connect her with Daniellyn so no one can “switch” babies. Susan Brown, one of Birkhead’s lawyers, said: “We don’t care about the body.”

Danniellyn is potentially the heir to Smith’s multi-million dollar fortune. Three men now claim to be her father: Stern, Birkhead and Frederic von Anhalt, ninth husband of 90-year-old actress Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Smith, 39, died last Thursday at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. She was the widow of Texas oil tycoon J Howard Marshall II, whom she married in 1994. She had been fighting his family over his fortune since his death, aged 90, the following year.

Preliminary results of a post-mortem performed on Friday were inconclusive, although the medical examiner, Dr Perper, said that no drugs were found in her stomach. Smith is known to have battled with prescription drugs and alcohol in recent years.

On Friday, Vergie Arthur told ABC’s Good Morning America that she believes drugs were responsible for her daughter’s death. She said: “I think she had too many drugs, just like Danny.”

Yesterday, Stern’s lawyers provided a transcript of interviews Smith gave to Entertainment Tonight in October in which she said Arthur was her birth mother and nothing more.

According to the transcript, she said: “You want to hear all the things she did to me? You want to hear all the things she let my father do to me or my brother do to me? Or my sister?

“All the beatings and the whippin’s and the rape? That’s my mother. That’s my mom.”

Smith’s body remains at the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office. Mr Seidlin said it would stay there. He said: “This body's not leaving Broward County till I make the ruling.”

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