Don't Cash check Until You Hear From the Coroner!

[Pixie]

Did Laradon Follow his last wishes? Or commit a crime of greed?

John Beech had a plan, one of the most well thought out suicides I have read about. He seemed to dot the i's and cross the t's. It was obviously what he wanted.

The question is, are the recipients of his large donation liable for keeping the donation secret until after his death. You see, the check was sent with the following note:

WAIT UNTILL YOU HEAR FROM CORONER. And below that, in parentheses: PLEASE DONT CALL EVERYTHING IS OK.

John Francis Beech had a date with destiny last summer. He counted down the days on a calendar in his garage, crossing out each day leading to the final Sunday in July, on which he'd scrawled the word "OUT." But first he had one last bit of business, one final appointment to keep.

On July 17, Beech, a 53-year-old retired Coors manager, drove to Laradon Hall in north Denver. He'd called a few days earlier to arrange a meeting with Annie Green, the acting director of Laradon, a nonprofit that operates an alternative school and other programs for people with developmental disabilities. Beech had never met Green, but he explained on the phone that he was planning to leave his entire estate to Laradon. He was a member of a local Elks club, he added, which had adopted Laradon as its primary charity.

Green readily agreed to see him. But then she was unexpectedly called away by a death in her family. Although she tried to cancel all her appointments, Beech showed up on July 17 anyway. He handed a large white envelope to the receptionist and asked that it be delivered to Green.

Laradon's director found the envelope in her mailbox when she returned to work four days later. On the back, in handwritten block letters, were six words: WAIT UNTILL YOU HEAR FROM CORONER. And below that, in parentheses: PLEASE DONT CALL EVERYTHING IS OK.

Despite the plea to wait, Green opened the envelope. Inside was the original of Beech's Last Will and Testament, which left all his worldly goods to Laradon Hall.

The envelope contained keys to Beech's house in Lakewood and instructions about selling the house and its contents, closing his bank account and collecting funds owed to him by a bail bondsman and others. There was also a check made out to Laradon for $100,000 and dated August 1 — two weeks after the day Beech delivered the documents.

Having ignored the first message on the envelope, Green disregarded the second, too. She would later claim to have left voice-mail messages for Beech twice over the next two days, to thank him for his startling generosity — and to see if everything was indeed okay. But Beech didn't call back, and Green apparently made no further efforts to contact him.

The postdated check went into a safe at Laradon.

Much More

[Angelinfl]

Really really interesting........ There are some strange things out there and many interesting legal issues to ponder.

[Wicked Doll]

Quite an interesting read. It's funny how many different perspectives are involved here. All of them make sense in their own way.

Being in the middle of an estate nightmare myself, I can say that the best thing his family can do is drop it and honor the man's wishes.

Seriously, If they didn't realize he was suicidal how could they expect a stranger to pick up on that? His message was cryptic at best. He left a lot of questions behind. . .he did not leave any question as to how he wanted his estate handled though.

Great story.