Slayer Seeks Slayee’s Estate

Wife was involved in killing Husband and is currently in “the big house” serving a 15-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter.  Wife’s boyfriend is serving a life sentence for smashing in Husband’s skull and ribs and inflicting other injuries resulting in Husband’s death.

Husband’s will leaves the majority of his over $400,000 estate to Wife.

Wife is now claiming her share of the estate under Husband’s will.  The local (Ohio) slayer statute prevents a person convicted of murder from taking under the murdered person’s will.  However, the statute does not void the gift if the killer’s conviction is only for involuntary manslaughter.

The attorney representing Husband’s administrator asserts that Wife should nonetheless be precluded from taking under the will.  [Sounds to me like a good time to use a constructive trust argument.]

See Denise Sullivan, Mishne Files Inheritance Claim, Medina-Gazette and Wife Convicted in Her Husband’s Killing Wants Half His Estate, Columbus Post-Dispatch, Aug. 13, 2005, at 12D.

Special thanks to Prof. Alfred L. Brophy of the University of Alabama School of Law for bringing this case to my attention.