Inheritance of Headaches

It sounds too trite to be true. Little old lady meets polite young policeman; polite young policeman befriends little old lady; little old lady leaves entire estate to polite young policeman. And who does the little old lady turn out to be? Why, none other than one of the heiresses to Texas' fabulous King Ranch, worth millions.

It happened in Chicago, in 1965. There, just two weeks before Christmas, a spinster lady named Alice Byron Atwood died at 85, leaving behind a reputation for warmness and generosity.

Being the granddaughter of Richard King, she also left behind upwards of $10 million--all of it bequeathed to "my dearly beloved friend," a 35-year-old patrolman named Michael De Bella. The policeman has never explained how he met Miss Atwood, but a grandmotherly affection obviously developed in the heart of the reclusive old lady, so painfully shy that the only known photograph of her was taken when she was a child. Sometimes De Bella invited her to dine with his family; he often spent his lunch hour visiting her lonely hotel apartment.

"Grateful Recognition." Now, nearly two years later, De Bella has yet to see a cent of his inheritance. The will leaving everything to him naturally also disinherited a number of relatives. One, Mrs. Elise Baldwin, sister to Alice Atwood, is contesting the new will. Also contesting is Miss Atwood's lawyer, Thomas Hart Fisher, who came up with the news that an earlier will had left the estate to him "in grateful recognition of the many years during which he has been my friend, counselor and attorney." Fisher contends that the new will is invalid since Miss Atwood was "in her dotage and senile." De Bella, still a $173.25-a-week Chicago patrolman, is fighting back, but the will is only the last of his worries.

When the Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co., acting as executor, sought to determine the value of Miss Atwood's holdings, it discovered that the holdings did not seem to be all there. In a suit filed on behalf of the estate, bank lawyers allege that Fisher has already been well compensated for his services to Miss Atwood. Soon after he became the lawyer for her and her brother Edwin, he persuaded them that in payment for work on a lawsuit they should sign over what amounted to 35% of their King Ranch inheritance. For other legal work, he got 10% more. That left Alice and Edwin with 55% of the inheritance -- 27 1/2% apiece. Fisher had 45%, half in his name, half in his wife's. That, said the bank, was "unreasonable, arbitrary, inequitable, unfair, fraudulent and against public policy." And, the bank's allegations continue, it was only the start.

"I Trusted Him." Fisher subsequently got himself and his wife named, along with Alice and Edwin, as parties to at least two joint checking accounts. Eventually, says the bank, he had nearly complete control of the Atwoods' finances; he apparently gave them nothing except allowances of $1,000, or $2,000 a month from 1947 to 1965. Meanwhile, the bank went on, he was transferring more than $3,000,000 out of one account, negotiating loans using the Atwoods' assets as collateral and investing their money in stocks.

Fisher insists that there is not one single penny unaccounted for, and he may well be right. But seven times he has failed to obey a court order directing him to make his records available. When he was cited for contempt, he moved across the state border to Indiana. Last May, Edwin Atwood joined the fray as a co-plaintiff with the bank against Fisher. In all, says Edwin, Fisher and his wife will have to account for a cool $5,953,933.27. "From the beginning, he has used the relationship of attorney and client for his own enrichment," added Edwin. "He was my attorney, and I thought it was for my good to sign what he asked me to sign. I trusted him." As a result of his trust and his sister's, the courts must now try to unravel just how much the estate is worth, how much, if anything, Fisher owes the estate, and who is entitled to it--what there is left after lawyers' fees.

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