FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Anna Nicole Smith's body belongs to a Florida judge -- at least for now -- and Thursday he ordered another DNA sample taken from the former Playboy playmate's remains.

With at least three people fighting over Smith's corpse, Broward County Judge Larry Seidlin declared during an emergency hearing Wednesday that "this body belongs to me right now."

The hearing continued Thursday, with Seidlin questioning Dr. Joshua Perper, Broward County's chief medical examiner. The judge said he didn't mean to drill Perper but wanted to get details about why the body shouldn't remain on ice.

Among the questions asked of Perper were how long he had kept a body in refrigeration and if he did paternity tests as a part of his job.

Smith's longtime companion, Howard K. Stern, and her estranged mother, Vergie Arthur, each hope to win control of the body.

Stern said he wants to bury the body in the Bahamas next to her son, 20-year-old Daniel Smith, who died Sept. 10, 2006, from a lethal combination of drugs, but Arthur wants her daughter's body to be buried in her home state of Texas. Arthur was present for Thursday's hearing while Stern, who was in the Bahamas with Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn, participated via telephone.

Photographer Larry Birkhead, who claims to have fathered Smith's daughter, hopes DNA will prove his case.

"We fear that if the body is moved out of state that we may not get appropriate DNA or paternity testing," an attorney representing Birkhead said Wednesday.

But Seidlin made one thing clear during Thursday's hearing, saying, "It's always going to come back to that issue: What's in the best interest of the child?"

Smith's body remains at the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office under tight security. It has been there since Smith died after collapsing at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino one week ago.

The judge said it would stay there until he makes his ruling, even though Perper has warned the body is decomposing and should be released as soon as possible.

Seidlin said the body might have to stay put until the biological father is confirmed through DNA testing before determining who gets possession.

"The natural guardian tells us what to do with Mrs. Smith's body," he said.

Attorneys for Arthur claim she is Smith's next of kin and therefore has the right to her body over Stern, who claims to be the executor of her will. "They say he's an executor," said Stephen Tunstall, an attorney representing Arthur. "(But) you are not an executor or personal representative until a court appoints you, and the way you do that, your honor, is you present a will."

But Krista Barth, an attorney representing Stern, responded by saying, "The reason I haven't disclosed this will is because we've got enough of a media circus around here, and everyone on national television and then everyone sitting in this room is calling this baby some sort of golden ticket, and that is offensive and ridiculous."