MYSTERIOUS

Three Handwritten Wills Found in Aretha Franklin’s Detroit Area Home

The letters, one from 2014 and two from 2010, are the only known wills from the Queen of Soul.

Three handwritten wills have been located in Aretha Franklin’s suburban Detroit home more than nine months after her death, the Associated Press reports. The letters—two from 2010, discovered in a locked cabinet after a key was located, and one from 2014, found in a spiral notebook placed under cushions in her living room—are the only known wills from the Queen of Soul, her lawyers and family members said. The four-page will from 2014 reportedly says the singer’s assets should go to relatives. Yet some of the handwriting is difficult to read, and many of the words are either scratched out or squished in the margins. Franklin’s son, Kecalf Franklin, said his mother wanted him to represent the estate in the 2014 will, court records show. However, a statement from the estate says Sabrina Owens, an administrator at the University of Michigan, will continue to serve as its personal representative. David Bennett, Franklin’s lawyer for more than four decades, filed the wills Monday in a Michigan court, records show. He told a judge he did not know if they carried any weight under state law. A hearing is scheduled for next month. Franklin died last August at age 76 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.