Your Last Will and Testament is your opportunity to decide what you want to happen to your estate assets when you die. Only you can decide who will receive your assets. Sometimes the choice of beneficiaries is baffling to others as was the case when a 71 year old Illinois resident died recently. Ray Fulk, a Lincoln, Illinois resident, recently died and left his estate to two actors he had never even met.
According to those who knew him, Fulk lived alone on his 160 acre estate which was left to him when his father died. Fulk was not married, had no children at the time of his death and was known as a recluse. His estate, however, was worth over $1 million when he died. He chose to leave the majority of that estate to actors Kevin Brophy and Peter Barton despite that fact that he had never met wither of them.
Barton is best known for his role of Dr. Scott Grainger on the “Young and the Restless” in the late 80s and early 90s. Brophy appeared in the 1977 show “Lucan”. The pair also appeared together in the 1981 movie “Hell Night.” The decedent did have movie posters and other memorabilia in his home indicating that he admired the two actors.
The Will provisions were the “oddest things I have ever had to deal with in 30 plus years of practicing law” according to Fulk’s estate planning attorney. While this may be true, the important point in the story is that by creating a Will, Fulk was able to do exactly what he wished with his assets upon death.