Taxation & Estate Planning

Slayer Statutes, Attempted Murder, and Updating Your Will

By Joel A. Schoenmeyer

This article discusses an interesting situation from Ohio:

-17-year-old laces his parents' tea with cyanide
-when that doesn't work, he shoots his mother three times with a .38, and shoots at (but misses) his father
-both his mother and his father survive the attack
-17-year-old is sent to juvenile detention for a year, then joins the Navy (his relationship with his parents is strained -- YA THINK??!!), and eventually "settles down"
-many years later, parents die with mirror image Wills leaving everything to each other, with no other named beneficiaries*

Does son (now 43) inherit anything from his parents (whose estates contain about $500,000 in property)? It would seem so, since he is their only heir, and they made no provisions for other beneficiaries. A good quote:

"It's a mess, a classic example of what happens when you don't update your will," said John Polito, chief magistrate and administrator in Probate Court. "The way it was written, it was as if they had no wills."

Note that the Illinois "slayer statute" (755 ILCS 5/2-6) applies only to "[a] person who intentionally and unjustifiably causes the death of another." There are other, similar sections of the Probate Act dealing with the abuse or neglect of an elderly or disabled person. But there is nothing to deal with attempted murderer, which seems strange. If I'm reading the Probate Act correctly, if you try to murder your parent but fail, the burden would be placed on your parent to then execute a Will disinheriting you. Otherwise the regular statute of descent and distribution applies, and you are an heir. If I was in the state legislature, I'd support a bill that prevents anyone convicted of a crime from inheriting from their victim UNLESS the victim executes a Will (dated after the conviction) specifically naming the perp as a beneficiary. Then we wouldn't have to play around with these scenarios, and with the awkward wording of 2-6.

*I say "no other named beneficiaries," but the article is confusing on this point. In one place, it says there were no other beneficiaries; in another, it says the son was left $50.

Full post as published by Death and Taxes Blog on November 27, 2008 (boomark / email).