Franklin’s long-running estate saga is set to conclude as an Oakland County jury decides the status of two handwritten wills found after her death.
Nearly five years after the death of Aretha Franklin, her estate is finally on the cusp of getting resolved.
A jury trial is set to begin Monday in Oakland County Probate Court, likely bringing a conclusion to a long, thorny saga involving the Queen of Soul’s property, music royalties and heirs.
At issue are two handwritten wills discovered after the singer’s August 2018 death, each with quirky circumstances and conflicting instructions about the singer’s last wishes. The contested documents have deepened rifts among the star’s sons.
The trial will decide which of the documents should prevail — determining how assets will be distributed among the sons and other potential heirs.
Presiding over the six-person jury trial will be Judge Jennifer Callaghan, who has overseen the Franklin case since 2018.
Here’s a recap:
Days after Franklin’s death, court filings indicated the singer had not prepared a will or trust, despite her lengthy battle with a rare pancreatic disease.
One of her longtime attorneys told the Detroit Free Press he had advised Franklin for years to handle it: «It would have expedited things and kept them out of probate, and kept things private,” he said at the time.
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The will situation dramatically changed in May 2019. While preparing Franklin’s Bloomfield Hills home for an appraisal, niece Sabrina Owens, then the personal representative for the estate, discovered a handwritten will locked in a desk.
Dated June 21, 2010, the 11-page document was accompanied by a handwritten note declaring the will to be “the current & correct one!”
Michigan is among 26 states that accept handwritten (or “holographic”) wills as valid. So the matter might have been cut and dried — except that Owens soon discovered another handwritten will tucked inside a spiral notebook and stuffed under the cushion of a living room sofa.
