The July 2023 verdict in Pontiac, Michigan, marked a major turn in a dispute that had divided the Queen of Soul’s sons over their mother’s estate, according to The Associated Press . It took a Michigan jury less than an hour to rule that a handwritten document found in Aretha Franklin’s couch was her valid will.
One, dated 2010, was kept in a locked cabinet. The other, dated 2014, was tucked inside a notebook among the couch cushions, the AP reported. Their brother, Ted White II, supported the 2010 version. The jury ultimately sided with the 2014 document, finding that Franklin had signed it. The 2010 version named White and Franklin’s niece, Sabrina Owens, as co-executors. In the 2014 version, White’s name was crossed out, and Kecalf’s was written in its place.
The proceedings also revealed tensions within the family. That year, a niece searching Franklin’s suburban Detroit home for records discovered two handwritten documents with scribbles and difficult-to-decipher passages. His attorney, Kurt Olson, argued that a document kept under lock and key carried more weight than papers left on a couch. White, who had played guitar with his mother, testified that she generally handled important paperwork through conventional arrangements involving a lawyer. Smith alleged that White wanted to disinherit his two brothers, although the dispute centered on which handwritten will should govern the estate, not on a complete exclusion of the other sons from all inheritance. Kecalf sat near White during the trial, but the two reportedly did not speak. After the verdict, he expressed relief that the family could move forward with Franklin’s wishes recognized. The two documents differed in several important ways. The older document also required Kecalf and Edward to take business classes and obtain a certificate or degree to benefit from the estate, a condition absent from the later version. Both documents appeared to provide for the four sons to share income from Franklin’s music and copyrights.
Franklin, the global star behind “Think,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Respect,” died in 2018 at age 76 without a formal, typewritten will. The AP article said that the handwritten version included a smiley face inside the letter “A. Outside the courtroom, Kecalf said he loved his brother.
