During the discovery phase, Priya obtained records from Victor Strang. She obtained emails between Strang and Craig Felton that laid out the strategy in blunt terms.
In one email, Craig Felton had written to Strang:
The goal is not necessarily to win. The goal is to apply enough pressure that she agrees to split the money. She is a judge now, and she cannot afford the bad press.
When Priya showed me that email, I sat in her office for a full minute without speaking.
Then I said, “We are not settling. We’re going to trial, and we’re going to win.”
The evidentiary hearing was held on April 14, 2022.
I took a personal day from the bench.
Priya accompanied me to the Bullitt County Courthouse, and for the first time in years, I saw my parents in person.
My father was 67 years old. He walked slowly using a cane. My mother was 65, and she had that same hard expression I remembered from the night she told me to get out. DJ was there, sitting behind them in the gallery. Tanya was there with Craig Felton.
Victor Strang sat at the plaintiff’s table organizing his papers.
They all looked confident. Calm.
Like they believed this was going to go their way.
The hearing lasted most of the day.
Victor Strang presented his case first.
He called my father to the stand. My father testified that his mother, Lorraine, had always been easily influenced and that in her later years she had become confused and suggestable. He said he believed that I had taken advantage of his mother during her final years, visiting her frequently and manipulating her into changing her estate plan.
When asked why he had not challenged the trust sooner, he said he had not known about it until recently.
Priya cross-examined my father, and it was devastating.
She asked him when the last time he had visited his mother was.
He said he could not remember exactly.
She presented phone records showing that between 2009 and 2014, the years when the trust was established and finalized, my father had called his mother a total of 11 times.
Eleven calls in five years.
She presented records from the assisted-living facility where Lorraine had briefly stayed in 2013, showing that my father had visited once for approximately 30 minutes.
Then Priya asked my father about the night he threw me out of the house.
He shifted in his seat.
Victor Strang objected, saying it was not relevant to the trust dispute.
The judge overruled the objection, noting that the family dynamics were directly relevant to the allegation of undue influence.
My father testified that he had asked me to find another living arrangement because he felt I needed to learn responsibility.
Priya produced the affidavit I had filed detailing the events of that night. She asked my father if it was true that his wife had given me 30 minutes to pack a bag and leave.
He said he did not remember it that way.
Priya asked if it was true that he had turned off the porch light as I stood on the sidewalk.
He said he did not recall.
Next, Strang called my mother.
Her testimony was brief and emotional.
She cried on the stand and said that she had always loved me and that the decision to ask me to leave had been the hardest thing she had ever done. She said she regretted it every day. She said that Lorraine had always favored me over the other grandchildren and that it was unfair for the entire estate to go to one person.
Priya cross-examined my mother as well.
She asked if my mother had ever tried to contact me after I left.
My mother said she had.
Priya presented evidence showing that I had sent multiple letters and made multiple phone calls in the months after being kicked out, and that every one of them had been ignored or rejected. She presented the letter that had been returned unopened.
My mother said she did not remember that.
Priya asked if my mother had attended my college graduation.
She had not.
Priya asked if my mother had attended my law school graduation.
She had not.
Priya asked if my mother had ever met her granddaughter Zara.
She had not.
The courtroom was quiet after that.
Even Victor Strang looked uncomfortable.
Harold Beckman testified in the afternoon.
He was 76 years old, alert, articulate, and unshakable.
He described in detail the process of establishing the trust. He presented the medical evaluation of Lorraine conducted in 2009 by Dr. Samuel Perkins, which stated clearly that Lorraine was of sound mind and fully capable of making her own legal and financial decisions.
He described the conversations he had had with Lorraine about her wishes, and he quoted her directly:
“My son turned his back on his child. Joan is the only one who carries my values. She is the only one I trust.”
Harold testified that Lorraine had been lucid, decisive, and emphatic.
There was no confusion, no manipulation, no undue influence.
The evidentiary hearing concluded in late afternoon, and the judge said he would issue a ruling within 30 days.
Priya told me she felt confident, but she also cautioned me that judges can be unpredictable and that family disputes sometimes produce unexpected outcomes.
I told her I trusted the evidence, and I trusted the process.
I had spent enough time on the bench myself to know that when the facts are clear, the right decision usually follows.
Walking out of the Bullitt County Courthouse that afternoon, I passed my parents in the hallway. My mother looked away. My father stared straight ahead, gripping his cane. DJ walked past without a word.
But Tanya stopped.
She looked at me and said in a low voice, “This didn’t have to go this far, Joan. You could have just shared.”
I looked at her, this woman who was my sister by blood, who had not called me in 17 years, who had never acknowledged the existence of my daughter, and I said, “You’re right, Tanya. This didn’t have to go this far. You could have called me when I was sleeping in a studio apartment with a baby, choosing between diapers and groceries. You could have shared then.”
She turned and walked away.
The ruling came on May 3, 2022.
The judge in Bullitt County, the Honorable Patricia Kimble, issued a comprehensive written opinion.
She found that the trust of Lorraine Wills had been executed in full compliance with Kentucky law. She found that there was no credible evidence of diminished mental capacity or undue influence. She found that Lorraine Wills had been a competent, independent woman who had made a deliberate, informed decision to leave her estate to her granddaughter, Joan Wills.
Judge Kimble noted in her opinion that the testimony of the plaintiffs had been inconsistent, self-serving, and undermined by the documentary evidence.
She dismissed both lawsuits with prejudice, meaning they could not be filed again.
And she ordered the plaintiffs to pay a portion of my legal fees, citing the frivolous nature of the claims.
I read the ruling in Priya’s office, and I cried.
Not from relief, although I was relieved.
Not from vindication, although I felt vindicated.
I cried because it was over.
The shadow my parents had cast over my life for 20 years, the weight of their rejection, the sting of their absence, the audacity of their return, it was finally, legally, definitively over.
Or so I thought.
My parents did not appeal the ruling.