Aretha Franklin at 2009 presidential inauguration.
Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, continues to make news nine months after her August 2018 death.
Three handwritten wills were found at her suburban Detroit home -- all that favor her four adult sons. They also include commentary involving others she felt were insincere or "grossly inefficient," Mike Martindale of The Detroit News writes. Two were found in a locked cabinet were from 2010, eight years before her death. The latest version was from 2014.
The paper:
The information was contained in legal filings Monday by two attorneys in the case, David J. Bennett and Kevin M. Check, co-counsels for the personal representative of the estate, Franklin’s niece, Sabrina Garrett Owens. Bennett, Franklin's lawyer for more than 40 years, filed the wills on Monday.
According to the documents, on May 3, Garrett Owens “while continuing her examination of the home, discovered a key to a locked cabinet that she had been previously unable to gain access or open.” Inside, Garrett Owens found “two purported Holographic Wills dated June 21, 2010 and October 20, 2010.” Garrett Owens also reached under the cushions of a living room couch and discovered a spiral notebook containing another purported holographic will dated March 31, 2014.”
