Jury finds handwritten document found in Aretha Franklin’s sofa is a valid will
A Michigan jury ruled that a handwritten document found under Aretha Franklin‘s sofa after her death in 2018 is a valid will.
The ruling is a critical turn in a dispute between the late singer’s four sons that has turned three of them against each other.
The new documents that were signed by the singer in 2014 were discovered in 2019 by Franklin’s niece, the same person who discovered the singer’s 2010 will in a locked cabinet.
The singer did not leave behind a formal, typed will when she passed five years ago at age 76.
It is a win for Franklin’s second oldest and youngest children – Edward and Kecalf– whose lawyers argued that the 2014 documents were valid and superseded a 2010 version of the will that Franklin had left before she died of pancreatic cancer in 2018.
As the Associated Press reports, lawyers for Kecalf and Edward Franklin said the fact that the 2014 papers were found in a notebook in couch cushions did not make them less significant.
The 2014 will stated that Kecalf Franklin and grandchildren would get his mother’s main home in Bloomfield Hills, which was valued at $1.1 million when she died, but is worth much more today.
The older will said Kecalf, 53, and Edward Franklin, 64, “must take business classes and get a certificate or a degree” to benefit from the estate. That provision is not in the 2014 version.
“I’m very, very happy. I just wanted my mother’s wishes to be adhered to,” Kecalf Franklin said according to AP. “We just want to exhale right now. It’s been a long five years for my family, my children.”
Last year, it was revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation extensively tracked Aretha Franklin’s civil rights activism.
A 270-page document featured reports on the singer from more than 12 US states, and focuses on her friendship with Martin Luther King as well as death threats made against her and a copyright case involving a Yahoo! Groups fan site.
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Anagricel Duran
NME
