Author Archives: Deborah de Bakker

Bob Marley’s Story People have many reasons for not leaving a will. Bob Marley, the Jamaican reggae star, was a very spiritual man. His Rastafarian faith taught that writing a will would show inappropriate concern with earthly matters. When he died of cancer in 1981 at the age of 31, he left an estate worth about […]

Mickey Rooney’s Story Actor Mickey Rooney had a long career, starting as a toddler in vaudeville, becoming a star in the silent movie era and continuing to appear in films right up to his death in 2014 at the age of 93. Sadly, he was almost penniless when he died. Although his estate only amounted to $18,000, Mickey was determined that nothing go to […]

Bryer Schmegelsky’s Story In the summer of 2019, people across Canada were following the story of two young fugitives from British Columbia who were on the run in the wake of three apparently random murders. Ultimately, the two young suspects were found dead by suicide. One of them, Bryer Schmegelsky, had made a video recording shortly before […]

Aretha Franklin’s Story Aretha Franklin, the singer known as the Queen of Soul, died of a pancreatic tumour in August 2018 at the age of 76, leaving an estate estimated at $80 million. It was believed that she had not made a will.  However, in May of 2019, three separate handwritten “wills” were found in […]

Warren Burger’s Story Warren Burger was Chief Justice of the United States, so he knew a thing or two about the law. Unfortunately, he did not know as much about estate planning as he thought he did. He thought most wills contained far too much verbiage. He wrote his own Will, keeping it to the […]