Anna Nicole Smith laid to rest near son
(AP)Updated: 2007-03-03 16:37
Onlookers, a mixture of Bahamians and tourists, spontaneously broke into the hymn "When Peace Like a River" as the white hearse and the rest of the funeral cortege reached the cemetery. Some in the crowd booed Smith's mother when she arrived, though she had been cheered earlier by the crowd outside the memorial service.
In a last-minute bid to halt the burial, Arthur, who wanted her daughter buried in her native Texas, sought to have Supreme Court Justice Anita Adams grant her custody of Smith's body, but the Bahamian judge denied the request just before the service began, according to Lilliemae MacDonald, the judge's secretary.
Smith was buried in a custom-made gown, said organizer Patrik Simpson of Beverly Hills, Calif.
Some tourists were amazed at all the security and media.
"I'm just incredulous at all the fuss," said Christie Rathgaber, a 59-year-old nurse from Columbus, Ohio. "She was not a world figure. She was not a queen. She was not a president."
The legal wrangling that began with Smith's death won't end with the funeral: There is pending legal action over custody of her daughter, who stands to inherit a fortune, and over ownership of a Bahamas mansion Smith used to establish residency in the islands last year.
An official inquest into the death of Daniel Smith in the Bahamas is also pending.
Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward Country medical examiner, said he will announce Anna Nicole Smith's cause of death next week. She died on Feb. 8 in a Florida hotel room. "This was a complex case," Perper said. "It was an unusual case from a medical point of view."
Smith married Marshall 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. In May, the Supreme Court ruled that Smith could pursue her claim in federal court.
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