It is my personal belief, that Sally Bozeat only offered to help Willard make minor changes to his Will in 2006, knowing full well that if she retained a copy on her computer, she could make changes easily when the time came. And I believe she did. She also knew he couldn’t read or write and I believe she took full advantage of him for personal revenge and greed.
Interesting to note the date change. Willard died in October. Who, when, where and why was the date changed and not initialed? Also note, top line is a repeat from the page before.
Within the days following my fathers death and after seeing all the craziness going on around me, I tried to track down a copy of the Will. His lockbox with all his important papers, cash and valuables was gone, reportedly taken by Venita the night Willard died.
The Executor, Michael Murphy, had been to the house. He had his vehicle full of dads guns that he had originally taken over to Uncle Melvin’s, where everything else was taken to and stored.
Mark was angry because certain guns he wanted were not there and he was making threats. At one point, Mr. Murphy came up to the front porch, several witnesses were there. He had a slip of paper in his hand that he said ‘his lawyer’ had allowed him to read to everyone so it could be clear what ‘Willard’ wanted. He wouldn’t let me see or read the small slip of paper, but he indicated it was a paragraph from dads Will, and he read off all the guns and gun numbers, argued with Mark and gave him what he wanted.
I was STUNNED! The last time dad showed me his will, it didn’t say anything about any gun distribution. In fact, I never worried about it because when he showed it to me, it was as fair to all four children as it was possible to be. It also clearly stated, as he said all his life, he did not want his land sold for at least 20 years, since this had been explalned to him by Mrs. Bozeat that he could not say he never ‘ever’ wanted it sold.
So when we got to the courthouse and asked about getting a copy, several ladies in the office seemed Very confused. As God is my witness, one of them said “it has to be signed, uh, we’re still waiting for it to be signed”. I had no idea what she was talking about, what the normal process, or anything else. I was still in shock and knew something was Very wrong.
The first person to mention that the Will looked suspicious, almost immediately, was Gerry Hough. The next person was Attorney Daniel Grindo, who was Counsel for Ruth Mitchell when the family tried to evict her.
I never saw an actual copy of the Will until about a month and a half after dads death, and I was convinced.
My parents were divorced when I was 15 years old. A bitter marriage made of rage, poverty, alcoholism and four small children.
I didn’t know until I was grown and ever so slowly, rekindled a relationship with my dad. I was only a kid when they split and he’s the only individual in my life I ever Hated. And I did. With a passion. He was a mean, angry and abusive drunk. It was a daily event for him to hold us kids at gunpoint. Loaded guns and if we tried to hide them, we’d only get beat. And we knew it. We kids used to beg and beg and beg for her to leave him.
Finally she did. What I didn’t know is she sold everything out from under him, and actually left him homeless with nothing. He was living at a local river bank. Starving and no shelter. He talked about the ravaging mosquitoes until the end of his life. She left him there to rot and never looked back. At the time, I didn’t really care, I just thought he wanted to be ‘camping’ there.
Fast forward 15 years, and I was newly married. One of my aunts was having a family reunion in West Virginia, and I decided to go. That was the day I started getting to know, and love my dad. I’m thankful and grateful I had the next 20 years to look past the alcoholism of the past. That’s the part my ‘family’ never understood, I learned to forgive.
He’d sit on that front porch glider, look at the trees and talk about this land legacy he was building. Talked so many times about being sorry for all those years and this is what he was going to leave to his children and those beyond as his Legacy, of a true mountain man that loved the land, knew compassion and love.
I’ll be curious about thoughts concerning this ‘version’ of Willard’s Will.
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