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In a frame grab from video, Pat Simasko, an attorney who specializes in wills and estates and teaches elder law at Michigan State University College of Law, points at a copy of one of Aretha Franklin’s handwritten wills, June 29, 2023 in Mount Clemens, Mich. Five years after her death, the final wishes of the music superstar are still unsettled. The latest: an unusual trial next Monday to determine which handwritten will, including one found in couch cushions, will guide how her estate is handled. (AP Photo/Mike Householder) A handwritten will in a spiral notebook found wedged between couch cushions months after Aretha Franklin’s 2018 death is valid, a jury in Pontiac, Michigan, has decided. The July 11, 2023, verdict ended a years-long legal dispute among three of the soul singer’s four sons over which of three informal wills found in her home should take precedence over the others. As a result, the four-page document, drafted in 2014, will now guide how the singer’s multimillion-dollar estate and royalties will be distributed among her heirs. That document was the most recent of all of Franklin’s potential wills, which usually would be the determining factor. But it lacked a traditional complete signature. Instead, there was a smiley face drawn immediately before “Franklin.”
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