An out-of-state case provides an illustration of "granny snatching," and probate lawyers in Florida know only too well that it can happen here, too. The case centers on an 82-year-old woman who remarried her ex-husband just a month before she died. At the time, she had a brain tumor and advanced dementia -- she signed the marriage certificate with an "X." Her brother and her younger son started looking into the circumstances surrounding the marriage and other things that had happened, and now they are raising questions of mental capacity and undue influence that the courts will have to settle.

The marriage struck her brother as odd, because the couple had been estranged for 20 years. Their marriage had been marked by episodes of violence, with the woman filing for more than one restraining order. The brother was also confused that his sister was living with one of her children -- a daughter who had once held a loaded gun against her mother's head, threatening to kill her. Mother and daughter had had nothing to do with one another for several years following this and other violent encounters.

The decedent had told a relative that she wouldn't have anything to do with her daughter, so it was a surprise to all when another son scooped up his mother and took her to live with the daughter. This was about six years before her death, and family members saw and heard little from her from that point on.

Continued in our next post.

Source: Conn. Law Tribune, "Probate Case Is About Far More Than Money," Thomas B. Scheffey, 02/14/11