Conspiracy claim roils Whitehurst funeral family

LOS BANOS -- When this town's mortician died in 2002, he left three funeral homes, a gun collection dating to the Revolutionary War and hundreds of prime acres worth more than $10 million.

Seven years later, the four children of Joel Whitehurst Sr. still are fighting over their inheritance.

It's a bitter feud that has Anne Whitehurst calling her brother, Alfred Whitehurst, a lawyer in town and executor of their father's estate, a crook.

She contends her two other brothers, Joel Whitehurst Jr. and Tony Whitehurst, conspired with their brother to cheat her out of her share.

The dispute became so heated at one point that police arrested her on suspicion of disturbing the peace.

The Whitehurst brothers say the courts have determined their sister's allegations to be unfounded.

"Everything we have done has been transparent and above-board," Alfred Whitehurst said, noting that his sister is on her fifth lawyer.

She fired the rest.

Anne, 55, said she got rid of the lawyers because they took her brothers' side in the dispute and didn't tell her about key hearings.

She also said she never got a fair shake in Merced County Superior Court because Alfred Whitehurst is a temporary judge there. He is among a group of lawyers who help out by presiding over minor matters such as arraignments and small-claims cases.

"He has friends on the bench," she said.

The 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno rejected those claims in a December ruling. The court also said Alfred Whitehurst did not abuse his discretion when he divided the estate's assets.

Anne bristled at the decision. "They ignored my evidence," she said.

She's not giving up. She has filed a petition seeking a review by the state Supreme Court. If that court declines to hear her case, she has a backup plan: She has sued her brothers in Merced County yet again, accusing them of defamation.

Related to Fresno family

Joel Whitehurst Sr.'s fam- ily is related to the Whitehurst family in Fresno. The feuding siblings are cousins of former Fresno Mayor Dan Whitehurst, who was president of Farewell Funeral Service in Fresno until 2006. Dan Whitehurst's parents are William "Bill" Whitehurst and Ann Sullivan Whitehurst, a singer and actress.

Both families trace their start to Joel and Bill's father, who started a funeral home in Los Banos in the early 1920s. The brothers took over that business decades ago, when their father died.

In the 1950s, Bill Whitehurst struck out on his own, expanding to Fresno and elsewhere. Joel Whitehurst remained in Los Banos and later added mortuaries in Dos Palos and Firebaugh.

Joel Whitehurst Sr. was a combat pilot in World War II and a savvy real estate investor.

Bill Whitehurst, 86, said recently that the family feud puzzles him, because his brother made sure his children had everything. "My brother was a fair man," he said.

The feuding siblings graduated from Santa Clara University, the same college their father attended.

Today, Joel Jr., 61, oversees the Whitehurst Funeral Chapel in Los Banos.

Tony, 58, a former Merced County supervisor, is a land development consultant. Alfred, 50, was voted lawyer of the year by readers of the local newspaper in 2008.

Anne is an artist. Her husband, Robert Manzanedo, 47, has helped her organize the civil case against her brothers. She has sued them five times.

"They want me to roll over," Anne said. "But I'm not going to let them get away with it."

Anne Whitehurst said she was very close to her parents. She took care of her mother, Cecilia Teresa Whitehurst, who had been the mortuary's bookkeeper and suffered from cancer; she died in August 1999 at 75. Anne said she cared for her father as well, who died Nov. 15, 2002, at 84.

The four siblings agree on one point -- their father had a will that gave them equal shares of the estate upon his death.

Anne contends in court papers that she and her brothers met with their father a week before he died and discussed his final wishes. She said her father's final will would have granted her co-executor status with her brother Alfred.

But he lost that will, she said.

Alfred said the meeting never happened. He also said his father hired a lawyer to work out details of the will more than a decade before his death.

"I am not an estate planner," he said.

$1,500 monthly allowance

According to court records, Joel and Cecilia Whitehurst's irrevocable living trust and will was written in 1991. Alfred Whitehurst was named sole executor of the estate.

After their father died, Alfred said in court papers that he consulted with his siblings frequently to discuss the estate.

Because Anne didn't have a steady income, the brothers gave her a monthly allowance of $1,500, medical benefits, a gas card and limited use of a business credit card.

The brothers also sold their parents' Los Banos home to Anne at less than market value, court records said.

The relationship went sour in the summer of 2004, when Anne hired a lawyer.

Alfred said he didn't want his sister to hire a lawyer.

He said in court papers that his sister was "mentally disturbed" and he didn't want a lawyer to take advantage of her.

But Anne told her brother she no longer trusted him, court records said.

By December 2004, Anne hired another lawyer. Now she had two lawyers requesting documents about the estate and an accounting of all assets, according to court documents. Alfred said he complied with their repeated demands for business records.

The quarrel hit a boiling point Nov. 8, 2005, when Anne was arrested at the Whitehurst Funeral Chapel in Los Banos, accused of disturbing the peace. She was yelling and cursing while a family was grieving, Joel Whitehurst Jr. told sheriff's deputies.

The sheriff's report said Anne still owned an interest in the business and that she had gone there to borrow a pickup.

In a recent interview, she blamed her brothers for the incident because she had made arrangements to borrow the truck.

"They purposely tried to make me look like a fool," she said.

In court documents, Anne said she has a right to be worried about her share of the estate because Alfred first valued their father's estate at $500,000.

"That was a crock, and he knew it," she said in the interview.

Alfred said in a recent interview that the initial figure was a preliminary estimate, not a final tally. He added that his sister's lawyers made sure the estate was split fairly.

Alfred said both sides agreed in court on Oct. 31, 2005, to hire an appraiser, a person suggested by his sister's lawyer.

The agreement said the appraisals would be binding for distribution of the estate's assets, court records said.

When interviewed, Anne said her lawyer didn't tell her about the hearing and her lawyer had no authority to make the agreement. She said the appraiser got all his information about the estate from her brothers.

"It was not an independent evaluation," she said.

After the appraisals were completed, Merced County Superior Court Judge Ronald Hansen held a hearing on Nov. 13, 2006, when Alfred's distribution of assets was approved.

Anne said she missed that hearing, too, because her lawyer didn't tell her about it.

Uphill legal fight

Fresno attorney Katharine Kettell Kesselman, who is not a party to the case, said Anne Whitehurst faces an uphill battle, partly because she had legal representation throughout the proceedings.

Kesselman, who teaches trusts and wills at San Joaquin College of Law in Clovis, also said Anne's contention that a judge gave Alfred favorable treatment is tough to prove.

"In this business, people know people, and Merced County is pretty big, with a sizable bench," she said.

To have any chance at prevailing, Anne has to prove her brother intentionally misled the court, Kesselman said.

Anne said she has proof -- the court-approved distribution of assets.

She said the distribution was unfair because she received 80 acres of hilly property near Los Banos that can't be developed or farmed, while her brothers received nearly 40 acres next to Fox Hills golf course near Los Banos.

Joel Whitehurst Sr. also had 150 to 200 guns, some of them dating to the Revolutionary and Civil wars.

The appraiser valued the gun collection at $35,915, court records show.

Anne said her brothers kept the guns and gave her about $8,000.

"The guns were worth at least $250,000," she said.

The brothers also retained ownership of the three mortuaries, cutting their sister out of the business, court records said.

Anne said the three mortuaries gross about $2 million a year because they are the only funeral businesses in Los Banos, Dos Palos and Firebaugh.

When interviewed, Alfred provided mounds of docu- mentation to show that the courts had reviewed the distribution and approved it. He said his father collected many guns that weren't valuable, and that there are no plans to develop the Whitehurst property near the golf course.

Alfred agreed the mortuaries made money, but he also said it takes money to run them.

"She probably didn't tell you that she got all our mother's jewelry and we didn't object to that," he said.

Because of Anne's accusation, her brothers have quit paying her $1,500 a month plus the other benefits.

Anne said she has not accepted any portion of her father's estate and has spent more than $200,000 in legal fees to fight her brothers.

"The distribution is laughable, because on paper the numbers add up," she said, "but in reality it's sheer bull."

This story was originally published February 22, 2009 at 11:19 PM with the headline "Conspiracy claim roils Whitehurst funeral family."