Category: Wills, Trusts and Estate Planning

In his final will and testament, Robert Allan Miller of Bethlehem, Pa., did his part to reduce the annoying traffic situations caused by double-parking. Miller, who died in 1995 at age 64, bequeathed $5,000 as reward money for officers who write the most tickets for double-parking.

5 April: The 70-year-old Hughes, who has already been in a coma for three days, dies at 1.27pm, en route by private jet from Acapulco in Mexico to a hospital in Houston. The official cause of death is chronic kidney disease, but it is just as likely to have been from dehydration, malnutrition and neglect. […]

The man who perfected the Frisbee, Ed Headrick, loved frisbies so much that his dying wish was for his ashes to be moulded into memorial discs. “Steady Ed” also instructed that the discs be sold and the profits go to a museum dedicated to the history of the frisbee.

Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara listed 70 people in a Lisbon phone directory. They were contacted out of the blue after his death to be told he had made them his beneficiaries.
They had been chosen at random from the directory, in front of two witnesses at a registry office 13 years before.
It certainly came as […]

“During the winter of 1616, Shakespeare summoned his lawyer Francis Collins, who a decade earlier had drawn up the indentures for the Stratford tithes transaction, to execute his last will and testament. Apparently this event took place in January, for when Collins was called upon to revise the document some weeks later, he (or his […]

When Mark Gruenwald, of Marvel Comics fame, died in 1996, he left instructions in his will for his heirs blend the ashes of his body with ink and use the mixture within the pages of a comic book. According to an Associated Press story, 4,000 copies of Gruenwald’s ‘ink-and-ashes’ edition was distributed in 1997.
Hired initially […]

A starstruck Charles Bronson fan named Audrey Jean Knauer left $290,000 to the idolized actor. She’d never met him before or engaged in contact by any means.
The Louisville Free Public Library in Kentucky is tied-up in legal negotiations with the family of the late Audrey Jean Knauer over one of her final requests, which hinges […]

Lawyer Charles Millar willed most of his $1 million fortune to the woman who produced the most babies in Toronto, within 10 years following his death. But his mischievous didn’t stop there. Millar bequeathed shares in a jockey club to two men who were well-known for their opposition to racetrack betting, and left shares in […]

Most firms have what’s referred to as a “Key Man”—the one architect upon whom the success of the business depends.  In fact, for some companies, the business could not survive if one or more key individuals suddenly passed or were injured and could not work.  In many cases, this “Key Man” is the firm’s owner […]

British singer Dusty Springfield’s 1999 will specified that a bequest for her cat, Nicholas, be spent on a lifetime supply of Nicholas’ favorite meal — imported baby food. Additionally, Dusty’s will instructed that Nicholas’ bed be lined with Dusty’s nightgown and that Dusty’s recordings be played each night at Nicholas’ bedtime.