Chris Newman’s will

Within weeks of our first getting together as a couple in spring 2009, Chris asked me to marry him. I said I wanted to wait a more appropriate amount of time, and also, I needed him to stabilize off of heroin, as at he had been relapsing a lot. After Chris was stabilized on a methadone maintenance program and doing well, in fall of 2010 I agreed to marry him. But when we told my mom, she surprised me by talking Chris out of it, saying she thought he wouldn’t be able to get his disability money anymore and telling us we should wait until Brook graduated from high school in four years. I didn’t want to do that, but Chris was afraid of losing money or becoming homeless. This was extremely upsetting to me.

Brook would graduate in June 2014. In January 2014 I was kidnapped and held in California, and everyone was telling Chris that I was crazy and needed psychological help, etc. While I was being held, the wedding band Chris’ mother gave me – her wedding band – was stolen off of my finger. Because of outside machinations, things started to become extremely disrupted in 2014 and didn’t stop. Chris lost interest in formally marrying.

Chris had hand written wills into his notebooks over the years, leaving his estate – which was mostly his musical catalog – to me. All of those notebooks have vanished.

Once Chris was in hospice we decided it would be a good idea to do an official will, and worked with Providence Hospice nurses to achieve that. Even that was almost sabotaged (longer story to tell here, typical form of sabotage is to misremember a scheduled time or date) – but fortunately we were able to coordinate with the notary/nurse and two witnesses. Chris figured out who to call, and made sure they were here at the right time.

I don’t think Chris would have anticipated in a million years that his estate would be contested in any way. No one had showed the interest documenting and promoting his musical catalog that I had. But after his death (and before his will had gone into probate) Chris’ ex-wife Valarie and siblings had put together a fundraiser to “Help Save Chris Newman’s Musical Legacy.” The behavior of Chris’ ex-wife (a honeytrap) defies logic. In this endeavor she is allied with people who she knows committed fraud against Chris.

In this fundraiser, a lot of demonstrably untrue and damaging things are said about me. Because I could show that the things published in the fundraiser, for example, about me not allowing Chris to see anyone, were untrue, after showing them the evidence, I asked GoFundMe to address (remove or ask the authors to remove) the defamatory content. GoFundMe responded briefly to my first email saying that they would investigate, then stopped responding to my emails. Valarie and Chris’ brothers and sisters similarly ignored my emails asking them to remove specifically the false and damaging content.

The fundraiser states that I have been documented by Adult Protective Services as abusive. When I read that, I decided to call Adult Protective Services to find out if that was true, and indeed, they said that they had received complaints, opened an investigation, and concluded that there was “a preponderance of evidence” that I had been verbally abusive. However, I would not be permitted to see any of this evidence without filing a complaint in circuit court and going through a discovery process.

With the information I have, the behavior of our family members is inexplicable.