Hughes will hoax
The "Hughes will hoax" centers on the controversy surrounding the estate of Howard Hughes, a billionaire recluse who died in 1976. After his death, a handwritten will surfaced, allegedly left by Hughes and filed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This will would have granted gas station owner Melvin Dummar a significant portion of Hughes's estate, leading to claims of a personal encounter with Hughes himself. However, the authenticity of the will was heavily scrutinized. Forensic analysis, including handwriting comparisons and fingerprint evidence, ultimately determined that the will was a forgery. The court ruled against the will's legitimacy, and Hughes's estate was divided according to state intestacy laws since no valid will was found. This case highlights the complexities surrounding estate planning and the importance of verifying legal documents to ensure rightful inheritance.
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Hughes will hoax
DATE: Will filed in 1976
THE EVENT: When billionaire recluse Howard Hughes died in 1976, no one could locate his will. Soon, however, a will was found that would have made gas station owner Melvin Dummar very rich. The authenticity of the will, purportedly handwritten by Hughes, was challenged.
SIGNIFICANCE: Forensic scientists played a major role in shedding light on the fraudulent nature of the will. After forensic evidence was presented regarding fingerprint analysis as well as analysis of the will’s handwriting and ink, the court ruled the will a forgery.
A will is a document executed by an individual that specifies who will receive that person’s property upon the person’s death. In the United States, if a person dies intestate—that is, without having made a will—state law determines how the deceased’s estate is divided among persons related to the deceased by blood, marriage, or adoption. In some cases, forensic analysis is necessary to confirm that a will is authentic in order to avoid the application of intestacy law.
After Howard Hughes’s death in April, 1976, a holographic (that is, handwritten) will allegedly written by Hughes was filed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with a county court located in Las Vegas, Nevada. The will had been left anonymously at the Church’s headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah. One provision in the will bequeathed one-sixteenth of Hughes’s estate, an amount of more than $150 million, to Melvin Dummar. Dummar, the owner of a small gas station in Utah, claimed that before Hughes’s death, he had picked up a man from the desert roadside north of Las Vegas and given the man a ride to Las Vegas; Dummar said that the man told him he was Howard Hughes. Dummar had no legal relationship to Hughes that would have entitled him to receive a portion of the Hughes’s estate under intestacy law, so Dummar could inherit only if the court determined that the will was authentic.
An investigation concerning the legitimacy of the will took place. One piece of evidence presented in court was a fingerprint match between Dummar and a fingerprint found on a library copy of Clifford Irving’s book What Really Happened (1972; later retitled Hoax!); this book concerned Irving’s own fraudulent autobiography of Howard Hughes, and it contained some examples of Hughes’s handwriting. Forensic document examiners determined that Hughes had not written the purported holographic will, as his handwriting had changed significantly in the few years before his death and the handwriting of the will resembled that depicted in Irving’s book. In addition, research chemists for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted an ink analysis, comparing the ink used on the holographic will with inks that would have been available on the date the will was allegedly written. Because the Paper Mate pen company had made an ink that matched the ink on the date of the purported will, the ink evidence was not conclusive in proving the will was a fraud.
Based on the handwriting, the forensic investigators deemed the holographic will a crude forgery, and after a lengthy and costly court fight, the agreed and found that the will was not authentic. An authentic will for Howard Hughes was never found, and Hughes’s estate passed under the state intestacy laws. No criminal charges were filed against Dummar or any other party regarding the creation of the fraudulent will. Dummar passed away on December 9, 2018.
Bibliography
Freese, Paul L. “Howard Hughes and Melvin Dummar: Forensic Science Fact Versus Film Fiction.” Journal of Forensic Sciences 31 (January, 1986): 342-359.
Frehner, Veri L., and Chuck Waldron. The Mysterious Howard Hughes Revealed. Victoria, B.C.: Trafford, 2004.
Hollenhorst, John. "Man Who Claimed Howard Hughes Wrote Him Into Will Has Died." KSL, 10 Dec. 2018, ksltv.com/404785/melvin-dummar/. Accessed 15 Aug. 2024.
Miller, Chris. "Deseret News Archives: Attention on Melvin Dummar, Howard Hughes Will Was Overwhelming." Deseret News, 8 June 2024, www.deseret.com/the-west/2024/06/08/deseret-news-archives-attention-on-melvin-dummar-howard-hughes-will-was-overwhelming/. Accessed 15 Aug. 2024.
Rhoden, Harold. High Stakes: The Gamble for the Howard Hughes Will. New York: Crown, 1980.