This story is developing, and I'm hearing everything secondhand from one of the interested parties, so take it all with a grain of salt.
My wife's uncle (we'll call him Pop) died a few weeks ago. That's no surprise, as he was 60 and 300+ pounds, but of course no will. Wife's cousin (we'll call her DQ for drama queen, as drama seems to follow her) calls my wife to vent about everything her dad's wife (we'll call her SM for step mom) has been doing.
SM went and hired an attorney without consulting anyone else in the family. I guess that's no big deal, but it seems a little shady to not include the deceased's daughter in the conversation. Yesterday, my wife hung out with DQ to let her vent. During that time, SM called DQ, and the two engaged in a 15 minute screaming match, largely over the issue of getting a lawyer and SM not communicating with DQ about it. All of this happens on speaker phone, with my poor anti-conflict wife stuck in the car listening to it all.
Pop's gravesite was already paid for, but SM wants a plot next to him, which costs $950 to reserve. She doesn't have $950, but apparently the money can come directly out of the life insurance policy on Pop. Pop's life insurance has a 50/50 payout between SM & DQ. However, because the $950 comes directly out of the life insurance policy, it's happening before the 50/50 split, meaning that DQ is losing out on $475 so that SM can get the plot adjacent. That doesn't pass the smell test to me, but I'm not much of an expert on life insurance and funeral planning. I'm hoping that DQ is misinterpreting when the money comes out of the policy.
SM show's up at Pop's mom's house. She asks Pop's 50 year-old mentally-handicapped brother for the key to the garage to get Pop's stuff (tools and such). Thankfully, brother doesn't know where it is. Then SM asks Pop's mom (who has Alzheimer's and also isn't aware of things) and gets the key from her. She proceeds to take a bunch of stuff out of the garage. Pop's sister, who is the caretaker for their mom and mentally-handicapped sibling, finds out about it, goes to the garage and finds that SM took nearly everything out of the garage, including things that weren't Pop's. So sister called the police on SM yesterday.
Pop ran a large farm. He had a lot of equipment with debt on it all. The proceeds from the farm barely covered the debt payments. I know for a fact that Pop had discussed letting DQ's husband take over running the farm (but again, no will). SM has the keys to the equipment and isn't turning them over. It's approaching harvest time, and missing the harvest will result in a lot of lost revenue.
I don't imagine that Pop had much of an estate, aside from the farm itself, which is saddled with debt.