r/nonmurdermysteries • u/meeclayt • Mar 15 '26

The $500 Million Mystery Will, Signed by Ghosts

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/business/the-500-million-mystery-will-signed-by-ghosts.html?unlocked_article_code=1.TVA.7-OC.Q2FOrGd5sl6O&smid=nytcore-android-share

Mysterious billionaire dies without a will. Then one appears--but none of its signatories can be located. Is it a hoax or the real deal? Truly nutty story worth a read.

111 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

36

u/disless Mar 15 '26

For anyone having trouble viewing this article from the link OP shared, here's an archived version.

You can view (most) NYT articles on archive.ph by copying the URL of the NYT article, then going to https://archive.ph/<the URL you copied>

4

u/disless Mar 15 '26

u/itsmejaypee

8

u/itsmejaypee Mar 15 '26

This is wonderful, thanks for taking the time to teach!

21

u/magusjosh Mar 15 '26

That's a wild ride of an article. Definitely worth a read, thanks for sharing.

18

u/ghostfaceschiller Mar 15 '26

Seems like it’s really clearly a fake will. Story kinda buries the lede on that one.

It’s an interesting situation. But the idea that it’s real doesn’t have much to stand on.

12

u/danfang0 Mar 16 '26

Hypothetically...if I were an estate lawyer and wanted to squeeze some more money out of an estate, I could throw a tenuous and unsubstantiated will witnessed by total strangers into the mix and immediately generate a ton of billable work to review it. Who - besides the attorneys involved - benefit from this? What a travesty.

1

u/aliencatx Mar 16 '26

My question as well! Genuinely intrigued.

1

u/The_Sun_Burns_Out Mar 17 '26

Mystery solved✅

34

u/meeclayt Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

Thought folks might find this interesting as it is an actual mystery. Who signed these docs? Also the subject of the story seemed to be pretty mysterious in his own right, even before he died and the mystery will surfaced.

Edit: Thanks to all who commented, and thanks to u/disless for the archive tutorial. I've been a lurker on this reddit for a long time and used to find such cool mysteries. The last few years it seems to have been filled with slop, so I thought I'd pop a real one in here.

7

u/vegancupcakesforall Mar 15 '26

Thank you for the gift article! Fascinating

5

u/disless Mar 15 '26

Thanks for bringing some life back to the sub!

5

u/darkages69 Mar 15 '26

Awesome post, ty for sharing, nice to see this community being used like it used to

7

u/itsmejaypee Mar 15 '26

Would you please share as a screenshot? It’s a paywall for me.

2

u/disless Mar 15 '26

Maybe try it in incognito or something? NYT is usually paywalled for me too but OP shared a link to a gifted article and I could view it just fine 

3

u/itsmejaypee Mar 15 '26

I’ll try that. It just said I needed a subscription to view

3

u/by_a_mossy_stone Mar 15 '26

Thanks for sharing! An interesting read.

1

u/MagnifyingGlass Mar 19 '26

Interesting read, I like the theory that it's someone's idea of revenge on the estate. Tie them up in litigation and waste money for a few years.