HAYS, Kan. (AP) A legal fight is brewing over the $20.6 million estate of a western Kansas man whose will was changed shortly before his January 2013 death.
At issue is a letter typed on 98-year-old Earl O. Field’s stationary that said he had decided to strip the Fort Hays State University Foundation as the primary beneficiary and instead give the largest portion of his estate to his part-time bookkeeper and caretaker. It described her as “like my daughter.”
The Hutchinson News reports that the foundation considers it fake. Field owned farmland and mineral rights, as well as a business.
A friend of the caretaker told Field’s attorney that he and his wife signed a document with such changes as witnesses. The couple died in a homicide-suicide in August.
