Smith’s remains are still in legal limbo

Anna Nicole Smith is one step closer to burial.

Parties vying for control over Smith’s remains agreed Thursday to have the former Playboy centerfold’s body embalmed at the Broward County medical examiner’s office.

In the week since Smith’s Feb. 8 death, her body -- in cold storage at the coroner’s office -- has been in legal limbo while three parties have fought over it.

Smith’s estranged mother, Vergie Arthur, wants to take Smith to her native Texas for burial.

Smith’s longtime companion, Howard K. Stern, wants to bury Smith next to her son in the Bahamas.

And Smith’s ex-boyfriend, photographer Larry Birkhead, wants DNA samples to use to test the paternity of Smith’s 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern.

In the second day of an emergency hearing, attorneys, reporters, videographers and photographers crammed into Broward Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin’s chambers Thursday.

Seidlin next has to decide who gets custody of the embalmed body -- Stern or Arthur.

Despite objections by Stern’s and Arthur’s attorneys, Seidlin appointed a Miami attorney, Richard Milstein, as guardian ad litem for Smith’s daughter.

“The overriding issue in this court is the welfare of this child,” Seidlin said repeatedly.

Stern, who is with Dannielynn in the Bahamas, is listed as the child’s father on the birth certificate.

Arthur wants to be named guardian.

A Bahamian judge granted Arthur’s request Tuesday for an injunction preventing the baby from being taken out of the country until the custody case was resolved.