Larry Birkhead - Claim of Paternity

Claim of Paternity

When Smith died on February 8, 2007, Birkhead filed an emergency order to obtain custody of the child. He had the support of Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, in his claim that he was the father of Smith's then five-month-old daughter.

Although several men also claimed paternity (including Howard K. Stern, Mark Hatten, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, and Smith's former bodyguard, Alexander Denk), a DNA test provided by Michael L. Baird, proved that Birkhead had fathered Smith's infant daughter, then named Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern. Smith had claimed that her attorney and partner, Stern, was the father.

In April 2007, a Bahamian court ordered custody of Dannielynn to be transferred from Stern to Birkhead, who corrected her birth certificate to show him as father and renamed her "Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead." Birkhead then refused to allow Arthur or any of Smith's family around Dannielynn.