A dispute over Aretha Franklin’s will split the family in two.
Aretha Franklin left several wills that were found after her death. Now the jury has decided which will be the artist’s last will.
On Tuesday, the jury concluded that the handwritten notes found on the artist’s couch were her valid testament. news agency reports AP Tuesday night.
Aretha Franklin died in her Detroit apartment in 2018, at the age of 76, without leaving a written will.
But in 2019, three wills came to light in Franklin’s handwriting after her niece searched for documents at the Soul Star residence:
- Two of them date back to 2010 and are recovered from a locked safe after the key is found.
- The third document is from March 2014 and is written on a spiral. It was reportedly found under the pillow in her living room.
The question was which of these wills are valid under the law of the US state of Michigan. Something that split the Franklin family in two.
This handwritten sheet was found under the pillows in the living room of Aretha Franklin in her Pontiac, Michigan home. The dispute over the artist’s will divided her family into two parts.
Both documents are difficult to decipher
Two of Franklin’s sons, Keckoff and Edward Franklin, preferred the handwritten notes for 2014.
However, one of Franklin’s sons, Ted White II, favored the 2010 papers.
It must be hard to decipher both notes. The handwriting was said to be difficult to read, and the 2014 papers had several words crossed out and sentences added in the margins. The attorney handling Franklin’s estate, David Bennett, has previously stated this.
The jury must have reached its decision in less than an hour. They concluded that the handwritten notes from 2014 are valid.
– I am so happy. I just want my mother’s wishes to be respected, Keckolf Franklin told the Associated Press.
Higher education requirements in the first document
The 2010 and 2014 documents are said to differ from one another, but both give Franklin’s four children the income from her music and royalties.
But in a 2014 will, it was written that Keklev Franklin and his descendants would inherit the main house in Bloomfield Hills, which was worth about $1.1 million when she died in 2018. Since then, its value has increased.
In the old document from 2010, she required that her sons Keckalf and Edward Franklin earn an economics degree in order to acquire the property. This should not have been mentioned in the 2014 document.
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