Blood Will Tell: A Shocking True Story of Marriage, Murder, and Fatal Family Secrets by Carlton Smith

Author:Carlton Smith
Format: epub

In 1981, Ken and Kristine relocated to Palo Alto, when Ken’s employer was purchased by another company. He and Kristine bought the house on Escobita Avenue in May of that year for around $200,000. Brown, who assisted the Fitzhughs in the purchase of the house with legal advice, was later to recall that it was filled with an assortment of valuable antiques—oriental carpets, clocks, the silver chest, a whole assortment of gleanings from the Fitzhugh clan, but principally from Ruth Fitzhugh Harding and Helen Fitzhugh Thompson.

Aunt Ruth had passed on in late 1976. Marston Harding’s widow was 90 when she died. Aunt Ruth had a modest amount of cash put by—about $41,000—and this was divided six ways by her survivors, including Ken Sr., the four surviving aunts (including Frank Hallett Fitzhugh’s widow in the Los Angeles area), and Ken Jr. But Ken—who’d had to act as Ruth’s conservator in the final year of her life, was granted all of Ruth’s “furniture, furnishings, paintings and pictures,” a bequest that apparently included at least some of the valuable oriental carpets seen by Brown, as well as the fabulous silver collection.

Ken’s new employer in the Bay Area was engaged in building and managing public housing projects in San Francisco and Sacramento. The following year, the new company suffered a “retrenchment,” as Ken called it, and the bank foreclosed on some of the housing projects. For the next six months or so, Ken worked as a consultant to the bank, helping to straighten out the mess that had been left by the company’s default; then he went to work for another construction company, this one based in Palo Alto. Again Ken was involved in building apartments, but primarily in Palo Alto and San Jose.

For the Fitzhughs, however, money was about to become less and less of a problem. Although Ken’s immediate family had grown—John was born in 1981—the older Fitzhughs were passing on. Interestingly, two of Ken’s elderly aunts—Susie and Helen—both had new wills drawn up after Justin was born, and both named Kristine as an individual heir.

In May of 1982, Aunt Susie died, leaving a total of $288,494 to be split among Ken Sr., Pauline, Ken Jr. and, curiously enough, Kristine as a separate legatee. Then in November of the same year, Ken Sr. died; his estate was encompassed in a trust, so the details of his arrangements were never made public, but presumably Pauline and Ken Jr. were named as beneficiaries.

Two years later, Aunt Helen died. The widow of D. E. Thompson left an estate valued at $2,050,811, the vast bulk of which, after taxes, was divided between Ken Jr., his mother Pauline, and the widow of Frank Hallett Fitzhugh in the Los Angeles area. That put Ken’s share at about $440,000, with a similar share going to Pauline, then 67 years old. Kristine was again named as a separate legatee, qualifying to receive a one-third share of Helen’s furs and jewelry.

Two years after this, Kristine’s mother Helga died; she’d lived a little over four years after her husband Einer’s death in 1982.

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