New fight over will of millionaire

Lawyers for the family and mistress of an enormously successful, alcoholic car dealer Monday renewed their fight over what Harvey Strother intended to do with his millions after he died.

By the time Strother died of congestive heart failure in 2004, the 78-year-old Cobb County millionaire was wearing a diaper and drinking more than a gallon and a half of wine a day. He left behind an estate valued at $37 million.

Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court heard arguments —- for the second time in little more than a year —- on the hotly contested case that pits Strother’s relatives against his lover of eight years. A ruling is expected later this year.

“Harvey Strother was a man of great wealth, great intellect, but he had demons,” former Gov. Roy Barnes, who represents Strother’s family, told the justices. “In the end, the demons won.”

Strother’s family contends the mistress, Anne Melican, took advantage of Strother, who was 30 years her senior, while he was in an alcoholic haze. She says Strother knew exactly what he was doing and that he wanted to make sure she was taken care of.

At issue are three amendments Strother made to his will in the six years before he died.

Just days before Strother died, Melican wheeled him into his lawyer’s office where he signed the third and final amendment.

It would have directed Strother’s estate to pay off Melican’s house in Cape Cod, Mass., and give Melican and her son property in Florida.

Last July, a Cobb County jury threw out that amendment. Hylton Dupree, another lawyer for Strother’s family, told the justices that Strother had been drinking before he signed it. This might explain why Strother’s signature was illegible, Dupree said.

But the jury upheld the other two amendments. These gave Melican an estimated $4.5 million, including a monthly allowance of $7,900 from Strother’s estate, lifetime health coverage and a condo in Cozumel, Mexico.

Monday, Melican’s lawyer, Douglas Salyers, asked the state’s high court to uphold the jury’s verdict on those amendments.

“The doctors of doubt have spoken,” Salyers said, referring to jurors. “They got it right. They heard all the evidence. They looked witnesses in the eye.”

Barnes said those amendments are invalid. On one, two women who signed on as witnesses did not actually see Strother sign a complete legal document. The need for at least two witnesses has been required since the 14th century, he said. “This is an elementary part of the law that has been there since the time of Edward II.”