U.S. & World

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (CBS News) ― Judge Larry Seidlin decided Thursday that a court-appointed lawyer acting as the guardian for Anna Nicole Smith's baby, Dannielynn, will be given custody of the model's body.

Shortly after the hearing, Smith's mother, ex-boyfriend and companion announced they will put aside their differences and work with attorney Richard Milstein to plan her burial in the Bahamas.

The judge compromised and gave custody to attorney Richard Milstein, the guardian for Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn.

"Everyone is to work equally and together and all the parties are in agreement that Anna deserves the best and the privacy the she sought," said Debra Opri, an attorney for Larry Birkhead, Smith's ex-boyfriend.

Broward County medical examiner Dr. Joshua Perper, who was present in the courtroom, will assist Milstein in the disposition of the body.

Earlier this week the judge said he would make his decision Friday morning.

He noted this afternoon that his ruling Thursday would come as a surprise to those present in the courtroom.

The judge began the sixth day of a hearing to decide the fate of Smith's body with a long diatribe, saying she lacked a strong support system and speculated that her relationships with estranged mother Virgie Arthur and Birkhead soured because of her overuse of prescription drugs.

Birkhead testified Thursday that he tried to curb the former centerfold's drug use and the judge referred to her longtime companion, Howard K. Stern, as "maybe an enabler."

"We have Stern. Is he a bad guy or is he a fellow that has some form of a love for her? We don't know," Seidlin said. "Whatever relationship he had with her, he would be called maybe an enabler."

Stern's attorney, Krista Barth, rose in objection, but Seidlin continued in what originally promised to be a long day of testimony.

The judge set a self-imposed deadline to rule by Friday, so Smith's embalmed body won't decompose too much for a public viewing. Arthur wants to bring Smith home to her native Texas, and attorney-turned-boyfriend Stern wants a burial in the Bahamas, where her son, Daniel, died of apparent drug-related causes last year.

Birkhead testified that when he visited the Bahamas home Smith and Stern shared last year, he became increasingly concerned about her drug use.

"You don't know how many times I had to help her … they kept bringing more and more drugs in the house," he said, adding that Stern told him that Smith needed the prescriptions to live. "I was telling her and I was also telling Mr. Stern that it was a problem."

Birkhead said he suggested she enter drug rehabilitation, but that she told him: "I'm not a drug addict, and quit calling me one."

He said that he was aware that Smith had a strained relationship with her mother. He said sometimes Smith would curse her mother, but other times she wanted her mother in her life.

"When she'd see people with other families, she'd say I wish I had my mom," Birkhead said.

The freelancer photographer tried to explain how he saw Stern's relationship with Smith.

"I think that he did and does (love her)," Birkhead said of Stern. "He didn't do the things he could have done to help her."

Smith, 39, died Feb. 8 in a Florida hotel. The cause is still unknown.

The testimony was peppered with details of Smith's sexual liaisons and the deals allegedly being pursued to profit from the deaths of the starlet and her son.

On Wednesday, Arthur was hammered with questions about any compensation she has or would receive from news organizations for access to interviews or footage after the deaths of her daughter and grandson.

She frequently said no to questions about arrangements with specific media outlets, and sidestepped other questions or claimed she did not understand them. Stern and Birkhead denied getting paid.

Arthur said her last conversation with her daughter about burial came more than 10 years ago, when Smith said she wanted to be interred near her idol, Marilyn Monroe, whose body is in a Los Angeles crypt. Birkhead testified he had had a similar conversation with her in recent years.

Even Stern has acknowledged that the former Playboy model had hoped to be buried near Monroe, though he said she settled on a Bahamian site after her son died and the details of the California plot could not be worked out.

The Florida hearing is just a morsel of the legal battle surrounding Smith. Birkhead and Stern both claim to be the father of Dannielynn, Smith's 5-month-old daughter. Stern is listed as the father on her birth certificate. At issue in a California court is who fathered the girl, who could inherit millions of dollars from Smith's estate.

Smith married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II 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.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)