Heritage linked to the farm that ‘yielded’ T. rex generates fight – 12/05/2023 – Science

Darlene Williams died in 2020, more than 12 years after the $8 million sale of a fossilized skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Named Sue, the fossil was found on her family’s farm in South Dakota, United States, in 1990.

Now, her children point out what they consider to be conflicting points in the wills, including one that Darlene signed shortly before her death, and fight over the inheritance she left.

The dispute is most recently generated by Sue, considered the most complete fossil of a T. rex ever found. The bones became the center of court cases soon after fossil hunters found them.

Before her death in 2020, Darlene had written two wills.

In a 2017, she named one of her daughters, Sandra Williams Luther, as personal representative of her estate. In another, from 2020, she designated this same daughter as the sole heir and executor of her estate.

“Please do not fight among yourselves,” she said in the 2020 will. “I have lived with my children at odds for many years.”

But another daughter, Jaqueline Schwartz, argued in court that the second will is not legitimate and has legal flaws.

According to her, just days before the date of the 2020 will, her mother was “seriously ill” and was admitted to a hospital. When Jaqueline visited her, Darlene “floated between consciousness and unconsciousness” and “could barely speak,” according to court documents.

Jaqueline stated that her mother was “susceptible to undue influence” due to low oxygen levels and severe anemia, which made her communication difficult, and that only one visitor was allowed at a time, in accordance with the restrictions imposed by the new coronavirus pandemic.

In February, she filed another petition, in which she asked the court for permission to bring allegations against Sandra and another brother, Carson Williams, over what Schwartz considered to be their mother’s mismanagement of funds.

Less than two weeks before Darlene’s death, Sandra apparently sold her mother’s house, Jaqueline’s petition stated. But Darlene’s signature on the settlement documents didn’t match the others.

The proceeds from the sale of the house, which totaled approximately US$225,000, as reported by the Associated Press, were to go to Darlene and, after her death, to her estate, according to the petition.

Instead, Schwartz claimed, they were “converted and led astray” by Sandra and Carson, who collaborated to enrich themselves after their mother’s death.

The brothers’ lawyers did not respond to several requests for comment made last Friday (1st) and Saturday (2nd). It is unclear how much each brother might have received from their mother’s estate.

The T. rex fossil unearthed on the family farm was named Sue, after Sue Hendrickson, the woman who discovered it during a commercial digging trip. It took six people 17 days to extract the skeleton. Tyrannosaurus is estimated to have lived for 28 years, according to the growth rings on its bones.

Its discovery led to a five-year custody dispute that ended in a public auction in 1997, according to the Field museum in Chicago.

The museum acquired the bones for $8.36 million in 1990 and now displays the skeleton, which is more than 40 feet long and 13 feet tall. The museum contains 250 of the approximately 380 bones.

The skeleton “is the most celebrated representative of T. rex and possibly the most famous fossil in the world,” says the museum’s website, adding that it has “allowed scientists around the world to conduct more detailed studies of evolutionary relationships, biology , growth and behavior of the species than ever before.”