Author Description

Robert Everson, when he died, wanted a valuable home in Vail he had inherited from his father to go in equal shares to his two children and the two children of his second wife, Judith Barkley. But, without input from a lawyer, Everson put title to the property into joint tenancy with Barkley and, after Everson died, Barkley claimed sole ownership of the property by right of survivorship. She then executed a new will, leaving the property to her two children and nothing to Everson's children. Jack McConnell, a nuts-and-bolts trial lawyer in Colorado Springs, was engaged by Everson's children to challenge Barkley's actions and put things back to where Everson's intentions for the property could be realized. This led to a trial in the El Paso County, Colorado, District Court wherein McConnell claimed that Everson and Barkley had been parties to a contract for the making of wills and that Barkley had breached the contract after her husband died. McConnell further claimed that Barkley, knowing her older husband would likely be the first to die, had engaged in undue influence aimed at causing Everson to put the Vail property in joint tenancy, to include withholding medications from her husband and thereby accelerating his death. McConnell was supported in this enterprise by his significant other, Veronica Stailey, a computer expert with the Federal Reserve Board, and his faithful companions, Casey, a not sure what, rescued from a Midwest puppy mill and Elsie, a Golden retriever Jack adopted after her people were killed in a car accident.