My grown son told me yesterday that he thinks my gentleman friend, we called ourselves partners, did not try to do anything to leave me something when he died. I was shocked at the way he felt about my partner who had been so good to me, gone through surgeries and illnesses with me, I paid my share of expenses every month to a total of about $48,000 over 5 1/2 years and had cancelled checks and statements to prove it.
He had been with his late wife for 20 years and loved all her kids and did anything for them. It turned out that at the hospital they told me they hated me from the time I moved up north with my partner and they had wanted to get rid of me and now was their chance since he was dying.
Since two of the step-daughters were durable power of attorney they immediately took control of my partner and refused to let me be with him alone and they, 3 of the step daughters stayed all night, every night sleeping in his room and one of them was there whenever I came to see him to make sure we didn't talk, this went on for 10 days. During that time he told them, he had always told them and they had agreed, to treat me fairly and I was to get a handgun he bought for me and $3000 cash that was in the gun safe.
He was giving them instructions and was totally alert and did not need any one to speak for him but they retained control of his health care, who could see him and were hovering over him the entire time along with numerous family and friends which he told me he did not want his dying to be a circus, he asked them to go home at night, they refused telling him he was not their boss anymore, they kept taking pictures of him with family and friends and he asked them to stop but they wouldn't, they told me that if I said anything out of line they would have me thrown out of the hospital. I was all alone with no one to help me as my son could not come up to be with me. I pleaded with 3 chaplains, a nurse supervisor and watched as the 3 step daughters stood around his bed staring at his swollen genitals while a nurse checked it out and when she cleared her throat, my partner said this lady and I live together. I told them later that they were very disrespectful for embarrassing my partner by staring at his genitals, he was their step father not their husband.
The items that he told them to give me were in his gun safe but a day or two after he died one of the adult grandsons was sent to go into the gun safe and take everything out, on the inventory of possessions nothing in the gun safe was written down and there were 3 amounts of cash, my handgun, 3 trapshooting shotguns and numerous other items I didn't know about because I did not go in his gun safe. One of the other daughters, there were 5, called to have me look for my partners DD214 and that is when I discovered everything was gone from the gun safe except my envelope of papers. They even took my late husband's original DD214 and I later learned they thought that was quite funny that they had his DD214.
I was not able to get an attorney to help me Pro Bono so I was my own attorney and went to a hearing to get my personal property back that they kept. The magistrate said that should go to the Estate. So I tried again to get an attorney and called every agency that helps poor and disabled but was told that filing against an Estate was not something they do Pro Bono as they expect to get money for those cases to fund the other cases for poor and disabled. I am 71 years old, disabled with several medical conditions the worst being Fibromyalgia and I now live on Social Security and two small pensions which still puts me at the poverty level. I live in a subsidized apartment with my partners dog who is my life saver.
I was late filing the case against the Estate and I had put a word in for the one step daughter that the Executor refused to give her any of my partners possessions as she had spoke up for me on what they were doing to me. The inventory of possessions was not complete as it did not have the shot guns, the handgun, the cash, all the shot gun supplies including a reloader for shells and the gun safe its self.
My question has always been what was in the safe. Could there have been a letter in regards to me. Could there have been another will for what I was to have. Could there have been my name on the handgun case. The step son-in-law knew the handgun was mine as did all of my partners team mates at the gun club.
I had found a Cohabitation Agreement on line just a month or so before my partner died and I had it filled out and was going to insist he sign it but the chemo he was taking on the second round basically destroyed his liver. So he went in the hospital sooner than we expected. I would have taken the document to my partner to sign in the hospital but I knew that the 3 step daughters would not have allowed me to do that.
After my partner died the step-kids took my belongings and put them in a house I was going to rent but had not sighed a contract or put money down. They got the key from the landlord, moved most of my belongings over to the house, without my permission, 4 days after my partner died. I did not have time to gather all my belongings before they locked the house with new locks, threatened me with arrest for trespassing and refused to let me get the remainder of my things that I brought with me when I moved in with my partner. The Executor had already taken several items my partner and I had purchased together saying anything we bought was theirs.
A couple of months later I found out the hospital he was in had a Patients Policy in a brochure that stated the patient could decide who would be their representative and it did not have to be the durable power of attorney until the patient could no longer make their own decisions. I called the hospital asking about the policy and they said we give the patient the brochure and I said that he came in directly taken to the ICU. I also stated I talked with 3 chaplains, the nurse supervisor and others and NO ONE mentioned the patient policy which would have allowed me to ask my partner what he wanted and we would have made the decisions on if anyone stayed all night in his room, the taking of photos that he didn't want and the disrespect for his body when he had shown the problem to me and had not shown it to the step daughters before I got there but they had to stare at him anyway.
The judge decided I was late in my claim against the Estate, that no other beneficiary had mentioned the problem with the inventory list or the fact that nothing was given to the one beneficiary. She in the end backed out from the harassment from the Executor who threatened her and coincidentally she lost her job just a few weeks before the scheduled hearing before the judge. The Executor denies having the handgun and the lawyer stated professionally that he does not know where the handgun is. The judge never asked to see any of the proof I had to show what was behind the whole "punishment to me for not being the woman they wanted for their step-father."
