Still known as "The Mormon Will" a will declared a forgery after Howard Hughes died, left 1/4 of Howard Hughes estate to the Mormon church. And 1/16 of it to Melvin Dummar. Turns out, after years later, new evidence is showing that indeed it was Howard Hughes legal will that surfaced after his death.

Melvin Dummar, was a kindly Mormon gas station owner who befriended Howard Hughes, outside of Las Vegas late one night after finding him drunk and lying by the side of the road.

He picked him up, and drove him back to town. As he was discussing something about trying to get a job at Hughes Aviation, the disheveled drunk in the seat next to him told him he might know something about that because he owned it!

That one act of kindness set off a chain reaction nine years later after Hughes death. Someone came by Dummar's gas station and left him the will that was later declared a forgery by the Nevada courts.

Now with new evidence indicating it wasn't a forgery, the time to appeal is long past. So Mr. Dummar still hasn't got a prayer to recoup his lost fortune which would've amounted to a cool $150m at the time.

Mr. Dummar made the best of his situation, and has kept a positive attitude in the intervening years. He even had a nightclub act where he sang about his run-in with Mr. Hughes, and maintains his innocence all these years later.

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/news/i-team-new-evidence-in-howard-hughes-mormon-will



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2015 09:25AM by amyjo.

It is well known that Hughes only hired male Mormon nurses to care for him in his declining years. His reasoning behind that was that because a) he felt Mormons were more honest, and forthright, hence more trustworthy and b) since Hughes was straight he felt it would be less likely a male nurse would put the moves on him to try and swindle him out of his money.

It wouldn't be the first time a "strange inheritance" had been left to someone.

Too bad the time to contest it has run out. Interesting timing on the part of those involved with the investigation. Like the FBI investigator who is featured in the Las Vegas news video (see above.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2015 09:20AM by amyjo.

...at the time of Hughes death, ex-CIA, FBI and Hughes executive, Bob Maheu, stated that he felt Hughes death was a direct result of "neglect" by the Mormon mafia/nurse staff. Hughes' autopsy revealed a number of problems and inconsistencies, including broken-off syringe needles from continued codeine injections.

"Still pending is a suit filed by Hughes' heirs against Thain and other members of the "Mormon Mafia" charging that they conspired to keep Hughes drugged and under their control."




http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20074229,00.html

ConcernedCitizen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...at the time of Hughes death, ex-CIA, FBI and
> Hughes executive, Bob Maheu, stated that he felt
> Hughes death was a direct result of "neglect" by
> the Mormon mafia/nurse staff. Hughes' autopsy
> revealed a number of problems and inconsistencies,
> including broken-off syringe needles from
> continued codeine injections.
>
> "Still pending is a suit filed by Hughes' heirs
> against Thain and other members of the "Mormon
> Mafia" charging that they conspired to keep Hughes
> drugged and under their control."

Interesting find. Note the People article is from July, 1979. From what I could see by the doctor's statement, he was more concerned with exonerating himself of any wrongdoing, it isn't clear he was really adept at treating Hughes for his ongoing conditions.

Hughes was suffering from kidney failure, that the doctor confirmed. He believes it was from a combination of aspirin and dehydration. At the time Hughes died, he'd withered away to 93 lbs. For a 6'1" tall man, he literally shriveled up!




>
>
>
>
> http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20
> 074229,00.html

Somebody got tired of peddling Dream Mine stories and decided to give this bit of hornswaggle a ride in the media.

Dummar's wife was essentially identified as the woman who dropped the alleged will off at LDS headquarters.

Edit: I'm working from 40 year old memories here (the story ceased to be interesting to me long ago even though my old man worked for Hughes Aircraft for a time). The original story, as I recall it, had a woman dropping the will off at church headquarters, and I guess Dummar later admitted to having done the deed when his fingerprint was found on it (and he obviously told several stories).

Actual historical truth--when it can be determined, and when it can't; I'm always open to listening to different sides--is much more interesting to me than silly drama.

Roadkill...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2015 03:02AM by SL Cabbie.

Well the church was bound to get their money. What's 1 /16th of the fortune after the rest was given to the family after the lds church cut?

Anyway -- watching a show called Tyrant. The father is not dead but people in the US think he is. The Trust is setup to only go to the decedent's male lineage. That means the gay son gets $100 Million and the mom -- nothing -- unless the son gives her money and she has to pay income taxes on it.

Dummar's share would've been 1/16th, which totalled 150million. Go figure if the LDS Corp share was to be 1/4 of Hughes estate, then it would've been ginormous what it stood to gain. Edited to correct the math. The sum LDS would've stood to gain had the will been admitted through the Estate court, would've been app $600,000,000. Still, a considerable sum, especially by 1976 standards.

:)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2015 08:38PM by Susan I/S.

Most states won't allow she be written out of his will if that will leave her a charge of the state.

True a trust is not a will. Still, she's entitled to her share of his estate through the laws of intestacy if he left no will. Or if he did, he can't override the laws governing what her share would be assuming he left a will.

Then again, if he's not even deceased, wouldn't it be a moot point?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2015 12:06PM by amyjo.

It's not new evidence. This goes back to at least 2005. And the evidence doesn't prove the will. Just that Hughes was in that area of Nevada at that time and that Dummar's encounter with Hughes might have happened. Dummar admitted to lying. First claimed he had no knowledge of the will. When his fingerprint was found on it he changed his story.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/600114069/Dummar-may-have-told-truth-after-all.html?pg=all

Thanks for sharing this article. The fact it was written ten years ago, is not that much different from the news article/video released this past July.

Quoting from the FBI investigator who took a personal interest in Dummar's story, ".... [A]fter two years of investigation, Magnesen switched from skeptic to advocate. 'I believe it completely,' Magnesen said. He's rewriting the Dummar story in a book to be published this fall.

He said he discovered three important new witnesses who prove beyond a reasonable doubt Dummar's story is true. They include employees of Hughes who knew the reclusive billionaire ventured from his Las Vegas hotel in 1968. 'Howard told them that he had been picked up by Melvin after it occurred,' Magnesen said.

His investigation also turned up a 1968 deed that may help explain the desert encounter between Hughes and Dummar. It shows the Hughes organization purchased an interest in 32 mines, located on the very dirt road where Dummar says he picked Hughes up.

'This explains why he was there,' Magnesen said. 'He had an option to buy those particular mines at the exact period of time that Melvin picked him up.'

The veteran FBI man says he's found strong evidence there was obstruction of justice, intimidation of witnesses and possible jury tampering during the trial of the will's authenticity. 'And so there was a miscarriage of justice,' Magnesen says. 'Hopefully, at least, I will have straightened that out.'

He hopes his findings will undo the image of Dummar as a fool and a fraud. 'He's had to live with that all these years,' Magnesen said. 'As this new evidence now comes up, hopefully people will know he's telling the truth.'"

The evidence just doesn't support the validity of the will for me. If I were on a jury now over this, that fingerprint and Dummar's lie would still do me in. I would have to consider the possibility that Dummar did meet with Hughes, maybe somewhat as he described but that is all. The likelihood of Dummar fabricating a will after Hughes' death because he had met him once is still there.

The comment about the Mormon male nurses seems a bit out there to me. I have several nurses in my family and all are professional, caring people.

The nurses I know are professionals. They would not "hit on" a patient (gay or straight, rich or poor). It is unethical and in bad form. I personally would be less trusting of a Cult nurse than any other simply because they believe in things like Kolob and condone pedophilia etc.

JR Simplot of Boise, Idaho was a tycoon.

In his declining years he fell for his nurse caregiver, they married, and she was left his entire estate. I do believe she was the reason he divorced his first wife.

The Hughes were LDS. He was Idaho's only billionaire. There was no wrong doing. They were genuinely in love from all reports.

She funded the theater arts building for Boise State University when I lived there. It's named after her and her late husband.

Howard Hughes was given to paranoia and distrust of those around him. With his wealth and assets, he had good reason to be.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2015 10:25AM by amyjo.

Howard Hughes was known to be so odd, strange, and eccentric, in his latter years that it's easy to believe anything anyone says he said or did! So the stories continue.
What is factual, true, is probably only known by those closest to him. He will continue to be fodder for stories.
Also, the stories often remind us of some odd, strange and eccentric family member that stories about him make them even more believable.

The devil is in the details.

It was la iglesia mormona that started the legal action in Clark County, attempting to get the holographic will adjudged authentic, so they could have their 1/4 of the estate. Their desire to see the will declared valid has to be considered compelling.

But I could find nothing on the first few Google pages regarding documentation of the church's efforts. Wouldn't they have tried to move heaven and earth to support Melvin's story?

What I did find were three different versions of what happened the night Howard & Melvin met.

I noticed that in none of the stories was there mention of Howard getting Melvin's name in writing.

Melvin was supposedly on his way to LA from Box Elder County, trying to find his wife, who'd left him basically because he was an air-head. Lynda had come into some money, via TV contest shows, which they'd agreed would be spent making their lives better. But impulsively, Melvin spent the money on a new car and a boat. Fed up, she split.

Also, there's a second version of why he was there to find Howard: Melvin was working in Gabbs, NV for a mining company, and was heading for Vegas for some R&R. Take your pick...

In any event, Melvin has some impulse control issues.

The prostitute. Howard was supposedly at the Cottontail Ranch because of a predilection regarding a prostitute named Sunny, who had a diamond set into a front tooth. The ex-FBI guy can't find her...

Melvin was caught in a pretty big lie. when the church revealed that the holographic will had been dropped of in the lobby of a church office building, it took awhile for Melvin to be tracked down, especially since his name in the will had been misspelled. When finally contacted, he told the press that it was all news to him, that he had no idea what was going on. But then his fingerprint was found on the envelope in which the will reposed when found at church headquarters. (no mention if other fingerprints were found.) He then 'confessed' his story about a limousine stopping at this gas station and a mysterious stranger giving him the will and written instructions on what to do with it. Melvin said that he lost the written instructions...

The Hughes cousins, the ones who got the money via intestate rules, once the holographic will was declared a fraud, determined that Melvin had checked out a book titled "Hoax" from his local library before the will was found. It was also learned that his new wife, Bonnie (reconciliation with Lynda, the first wife, having failed), Bonnie, had worked for a publication where the details listed in the will were available to her. Much of the information in the will was outdated, including the fact that the named Executor and Howard had had a big falling out a number of years prior to the supposed writing of the will.

The new evidence being supplied by the retired FBI agent, who already wrote one book on the subject, rests on two people:

The pilot who says he used to fly Howard out to the Cottontail Ranch, and an unnamed hotel employee who says it was known that Howard was absent from whichever hotel it was he was staying at during this time period. (I swear, three stories have him being dropped of at the Sands, the Dunes and the Desert Inn.)

As to a motivation for, the ex-FBI agent was shopping a new book on the subject. He, the book's author, is the only source for the new evidence proving Melvin to be an honest man. The new evidence was the basis of a new law suit by Melvin against the heirs, for cheating him out of his inheritance. The court threw that law suit out.

Final tidbit: in 1968, a year after his meeting with the bum who needed a ride and at the end of the ride claimed to be Howard Hughes, Melvin was charged with forging a payroll check. His response, "I wasn't found guilty."

Could it all have happened as Melvin claims (or at least one of the ways he claims), sure. But the matter has been examined seven ways from Sunday and doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Amyjo, do you believe Melvin? Was it a passionate belief in his story and the injustice done to him that prompted you to post this? Is there any possibility that Melvin Dummar once gave a carrot and words of encouragement to a young colt named American Pharaoh? Wouldn't THAT make a great story?!!

Did you remember the details or did you go back and research?

At the time, the clincher for me was the library book he checked out about forgery - and the fact that he named as executor someone with whom his relationship had been severed years and years prior.

It's a sensational news story, that still has merit.

Even if Dummar doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

It is however the stuff legends are made of. :)

If it was Hughes' holographic will, it still didn't withstand the scrutiny it was put under in the court proceedings, by none other than his first cousins who had everything to gain.

For a billionaire to leave his estate that neglected, goes to his state of mind. He died a lonely old recluse, given to excesses.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2015 10:22AM by amyjo.

This:

"For a billionaire to leave his estate that neglected, goes to his state of mind. He died a lonely old recluse, given to excesses."

Interesting how meaningless money becomes at the end of one's life.

This is so very true.

We can't take it with us. I only like it for the creature comforts it provides in the meantime.

I concur with SL Cabbie on this one.

It sounded like a total bullshit story back then and it still sounds like one now.

Other than the controversial holographic will that is or isn't Hughes' last testament, there was no other will that has ever surfaced, to be contested.

Which begs the question: Why didn't the eccentric billionaire make out a will, if the "Mormon Will" is not it?

He does not strike me as being a pragmatic man toward the end of his life. But if he was of sound mind, you'd think that's one of the first things of business he'd have attended to, with his vast empire.

He was very eccentric, and untrusting of convention, so it's still possible he'd have made out a holographic will at some time.

Dummar seemed credible watching the recent news video. But the courts have already ruled, and Hughes first cousins inherited a windfall through the laws of intestacy for the state of Nevada.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2015 10:55AM by amyjo.

I think he could have cared less what happened to his money.

Hughes had a bit of a codeine habit and his mind was not running on all 8 cylinders during the years that it would be normal to begin thinking about dying and wills.
I have read that there was a holographic will that was basically incomplete-as in not signed by Hughes. A 'work-in-progress' that Hughes no doubt in his codeine fog kept putting off working on until 'later'. Without a signature, that will was invalid, even though it was almost certainly written by Hughes himself.
Most all of his empire was being run by his lieutenants, primarily Gay and Maheu.

Hughes was preoccupied with other things, his compulsion for cleanliness, germophobia, his diet, etc., rather than the actual nuts and bolts of business. It is not surprising that, given that he was drug-addled and his lieutenants were building competing empires, an updated signed will was not much on the radar of Hughes and his people.

A holistic will is one you hand write while you're on the phone with your medium, listening to Tibetan monks chanting Kumbaya? Am I close?

Nah, just kiddin' ya. We know you mean holographic will. It's all good.

Yeah, I just auto corrected that myself before you did.

I was on my mission in Brisbane, Australia, in late 1975, when apostle Marvin J. Ashton visited and spoke to us missionaries in the stake center. He mentioned a few news items re: the church, including the contested Hughes will. He joked that if the will turned out to be genuine, that "the church will accept its $150 million in humility."