A niece of Aretha Franklin has discovered three handwritten wills, all signed by the singer. According to the Associated Press, Sabrina Owens, the Franklin estate’s personal representative, found two handwritten wills from 2010 — one that is 11 pages long with a notary’s signature — inside a locked cabinet, and a third handwritten will from March 2014, which is four pages long, under a couch cushion. All three wills were filed in court on Monday, and are difficult to discern, with lines crossed out and revisions.
When Franklin died last August, there was no formal will to determine how she wanted her estate — which includes rights to her music, property, and likeness — to be run. The 2014 will would legally supersede the other two, according to the Detroit Free Press. In it, Franklin said that she wanted her son Kecalf Franklin to oversee her estate. The estate’s attorney, David Bennett, says that Franklin’s sons “have been unable to reach a resolution†about the validity of the documents, and a hearing has been set for June 12.