Four funeral services attended by pop stars, civil rights leaders and tens of thousands of fans gave James Brown a send-off in keeping with his status as one of the music world's greatest showmen.
But more than two weeks after his Christmas Day death from congestive heart failure, the Godfather of Soul still refuses to leave the stage quietly.
His body remains in a sealed coffin in a chilled room at his locked South Carolina mansion while his family tussle over a burial site, and his partner prepares a legal challenge for access to the couple's possessions.
The unseemly squabble over Brown's estate, between his children and the woman they claim is no more than an estranged former girlfriend, threatens to rumble on. Tomi Rae Hynie, 36, says she has been locked out of the mansion on Beech Island which she shared with Brown, who died aged 73, and the couple's five-year-old son, James Junior.
Hynie said she has also hired a bodyguard.
"I'm afraid that someone is gonna give me a hot shot, walking down the street. I have big fears of that," she said on the US celebrity TV show The Insider.
Buddy Dallas, the singer's friend and attorney, has challenged the validity of Brown's marriage to Hynie. He said the gates to the mansion were locked to protect Brown's possessions from souvenir hunters. The house would remain sealed until after Brown's will was read and his children, as trustees, could finally agree on where their father will be buried. Hynie would have no role in that decision.
Meanwhile, Jacque Hollander, who claims the singer raped her at gunpoint in 1988 while she was his publicist, has said she will pursue a US$106 million damages claim against his estate.
Meanwhile, in Atmore, Alabama, a man shot a friend after an argument over Brown's height, police said.
Dan Gulley Jr, 70, was charged with assault in connection with the shooting of David James Brooks Jr, 62, on Monday, police said.
Gulley shot Brooks twice in the abdomen, and Brooks went to his car, got a gun and shot at Gulley but missed, officers told the Press-Register newspaper.
Information on Brooks' condition was not available. Officers did not believe alcohol was a factor.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS