Post by deyana on Jul 11, 2023 21:05:52 GMT -5
Jury rules document found in Aretha Franklin's couch is valid will
A Michigan jury has ruled that a 2014 document found in Aretha Franklin's couch after her death is a valid will to her multi-million dollar estate.
A two-day trial pitted the late Queen of Soul's children against each other in a battle over two handwritten versions of the singer's final wishes.
Attorneys for two of Franklin's sons had asserted their half-brother Ted White "wants to disinherit" them.
Tuesday's verdict ends a nearly five-year legal squabble within the family.
When Franklin died from pancreatic cancer in August 2018, it was widely believed she had not prepared a will to roughly $6m (£4.6m) in real estate, cash, gold records and furs, or to her music copyrights.
But, nine months later, her niece Sabrina Owens - the estate's executor at the time - discovered two separate sets of handwritten documents at the singer's home in Detroit.
One version, dated June 2010, was found inside a locked desk drawer, along with record contracts and other documents.
A newer version, from March 2014, was found within a spiral notebook containing Franklin's doodles wedged beneath the living room sofa cushions.
www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66170679
A Michigan jury has ruled that a 2014 document found in Aretha Franklin's couch after her death is a valid will to her multi-million dollar estate.
A two-day trial pitted the late Queen of Soul's children against each other in a battle over two handwritten versions of the singer's final wishes.
Attorneys for two of Franklin's sons had asserted their half-brother Ted White "wants to disinherit" them.
Tuesday's verdict ends a nearly five-year legal squabble within the family.
When Franklin died from pancreatic cancer in August 2018, it was widely believed she had not prepared a will to roughly $6m (£4.6m) in real estate, cash, gold records and furs, or to her music copyrights.
But, nine months later, her niece Sabrina Owens - the estate's executor at the time - discovered two separate sets of handwritten documents at the singer's home in Detroit.
One version, dated June 2010, was found inside a locked desk drawer, along with record contracts and other documents.
A newer version, from March 2014, was found within a spiral notebook containing Franklin's doodles wedged beneath the living room sofa cushions.
www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66170679
