Estate Dispute

A terminally ill woman who set up a $1 million trust fund to care for her cats and dogs when she was gone was "unduly influenced" by a lawyer who made his girlfriend the largest beneficiary of her estate, according to a ruling in Athens-Clarke Probate Court that rejected the contested will.

Now the strange case has been appealed to Elbert County Superior Court, where a jury eventually could hear the facts about a woman who left most of her estate to provide for the care of her pets.

Probate Judge Susan P. Tate in March overturned the will of 53-year-old Kay Elaine Johnston, who died of lung cancer in December 2007. Tate ruled that Elberton attorney Robert Johnson used the power of suggestion on the sick woman to unduly influence the will.

Johnston's cousin, Carol Phillips, asked the court to throw out the will, which left a $1 million trust fund to provide for the animals along with a home and seven acres of land to the lawyer's girlfriend, Kyria Wilhite. She was to be paid $50,000 a year plus additional fees for taking care of the 50 cats and six dogs that were alive at the time of Johnson's death, according to Tate's ruling.

"It was devastating - shocking - I can't say it any other way," Phillips said about reading the will for the first time. "I couldn't understand that (Robert Johnson) would have done anything like this. He was at her funeral, and I thought he was such a kind and loving man."

According to Tate's ruling, Johnson billed the deceased woman's estate for every visit made to her home, even charging to attend her funeral.

"If she said, 'I want a gallon of milk,' he'd go to the grocery store and charge his lawyer fee to get it, plus the milk. Everything he did, he charged for," Phillips said.

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New Turn in Dispute of Estate