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Murder becoming an inheritance fast-track?
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Taylor Marks
In the past, benefiting from an estate was generally a reactive status. More stories are surfacing, however, indicating proactive approaches being used to gain control of estates. Nefarious deeds are nothing new to inheritance tales, but the bold sense of entitlement accompanying today's acts illustrate America's further progression into becoming the Land of the Gimme-Gimmes and the Home of the I-Want-Mores. Looking at cases from Ohio, Maryland, Kansas and Florida, the lengths to which people will go to acquire the assets of others literally have no physical or moral bounds.
An Ohio housing project parking lot became a crime scene as Akron businesswoman Kristie Marks, 58, was stabbed on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 24, allegedly in front of daughter Taylor Marks, 20, Marks' boyfriend, Brian S. Smith, 20, and their friend, Troy Purdie, 19. A 911 call brought police to the scene. Kristie Marks was transported to a local hospital, but later died.
The Akron Beacon Journal described events as follows:
An emotional Taylor Marks called 911 after the stabbing.
”My mother has been stabbed in the parking lot,” she says in a recorded call with a police dispatcher. ” . . . someone just ran up behind my mom and stabbed her . . . ”
Marks told the dispatcher that Smith and Purdie chased the assailant. Police found Kristie Marks on the ground and bleeding from multiple stabs wounds. She was pronounced dead at Akron City Hospital.
Taylor Marks, Smith and Purdie were taken to Akron police headquarters for interviews about the attack. They talked to authorities in separate rooms.
Reports further indicate that within hours of the murder, all three confessed to plotting the killing.
”They were talking about it for a while,” (Detective James) Pasheilich said. ”These three admit that they had spoken and talked numerous times about doing this.”
Taylor Marks, whose father died in 2002, stood to collect a significant inheritance with her mother’s death, police said. Kristie Marks also operated a home health-care franchise business.
Taylor Marks offered Purdie $5,000 to kill her mother and he has confessed to the stabbing, police said.
”Marks admitted that she was upset with her mother [and] wanted her mother dead,” Pasheilich said. ”[Taylor] mentioned that her mom has money and has a will and that she believes that her name’s on the will because she saw it.
”More or less, it comes down to money.”
Marks and Smith are both charged with Complicity to Commit Aggravated Murder. Purdie is charged with Aggravated Murder. Authorities believe Purdie accepted money from Marks and then stabbed Kristie Marks.
Whether Marks will inherit her mother's estate depends upon any Ohio "slayer statutes." Wikipedia defines such laws as: "The slayer rule, in the common law of inheritance, is a doctrine that prohibits inheritance by a person who murders someone from whom he or she stands to inherit. The effect of the slaying was that the slayer would be treated as though he or she had died before the person who had been murdered."
Maryland is currently facing a case that may someday require invocation of that state's slayer rule as reported by The Frederick News-Post:
To protect the interests of a slain woman’s estate, attorney Alan L. Winik has asked a judge to prohibit the man accused of killing her — the woman’s husband — from selling the couple’s Frederick house.
A Frederick County grand jury indicted Marshall Franklin Metz Sr. on Friday on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree assault and use of a handgun in a crime of violence in the Sept. 29 shooting death of Ann Sue Metz, 60.
This measure was prompted as relatives of Metz were alleged to have disclosed plans for liquidation of the estate. Circuit Judge G. Edward Dwyer, Jr. has now issued an order prohibiting "Marshall Metz and his powers of attorney, Haugh and Vicky Metz, from selling or entering into a contract to sell the house for less than the fair-market value without holding in trust half of the proceeds for Ann Metz’s estate." Metz is undoubtedly innocent until proven guilty, but this provides that estate assets are preserved and not at risk of being distributed in violation of Maryland's slayer rule.
In a Kansas trial, David A. Stevenson, was convicted this summer of the May 2008 murder of his father, Walter Stevenson. The Hays Daily News wrote how "a portrait of a family split apart by money quickly is being painted." David Stevenson's alleged motive involved a trust dispute in which his father was seeking to remove him as a trustee while retaining his beneficiary status.
In response to Bonny Stevenson having written about $30,000 worth of checks to her son, one lawyer also testified of the elder Stevenson wanting to protect his wife who was then in the early stages of Alzheimer's with a guardianship.
In August, a Gove County jury found Stevenson guilty and in October, he was sentenced to life in prison.
Hulk Hogan making the talk show rounds promoting his new book brings to mind an attempted murder case involving an estate. In August 2007, Hogan's son, Nick Bollea, had a wreck and while Bollea escaped without injury, his passenger, John Graziano, suffered severe brain damage leaving him largely incapacitated. It was only in September, two years after the accident, that Graziano was deemed improved enough to leave a Florida hospital.
Meanwhile, Edward Graziano, John's father, is in the Pinellas County Jail, awaiting trial on a murder-for-hire charge. Here's how Tampa Bay Online described the situation at the time of the arrest:
Debra is a guardian for her son, John Graziano, the Iraq war veteran who was left in a semi-conscious state after a car wreck with Nick Bollea. She and her family are suing the Bollea family – Nick, his mother Linda Bollea and Linda's estranged husband Terry, who is better known as former wrestler Hulk Hogan.
The Graziano family thinks the Bolleas are liable for John's injuries and are seeking millions of dollars. Lawyers involved in the lawsuit have said Edward stood to gain financially as a result of Debra's death, either because he would become the family guardian or because he would get a greater share of any award or settlement.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Estate looting is nothing new and disputes are often relegated to pay-to-play civil venues. With that though, one has to wonder that for every case being exposed or made public, how many more might there be about which you never hear?
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