Doris Duke left $1.2 billion with her butler as executor, and a court-appointed lawyer said her doctor hastened her death

Doris Duke was the heiress to a tobacco and power fortune. On 7 October 1966, at her Newport estate, Rough Point, she was driving the car that killed her friend Eduardo Tirella at the gate. Police ruled it an accident; a later civil suit by his family found her negligent. In 1988, aged 75, she adopted Chandi Heffner, 35. Her final will negated the adoption. Duke died at Falcon Lair in Beverly Hills in 1993, leaving more than $1.2 billion, nearly all to foundations. She named her butler, Bernard Lafferty, executor alongside U.S. Trust. In April 1995 Richard Kuh, a lawyer appointed by Surrogate Eve Preminger, reported that her doctor, Charles Kivowitz, had hastened her death with morphine and that Lafferty had squandered estate funds. A nurse, Tammy Payette, made similar claims. Preminger removed Lafferty and U.S. Trust. The Court of Appeals reversed, finding she had acted without a hearing on "untested hearsay." Heffner settled her claims for $65 million in December 1995. In 1996 Lafferty resigned for a $4.5 million fee plus $500,000 a year. The Los Angeles District Attorney found no firm evidence of homicide. Lafferty died in 1996. In 2026 her money funds the Doris Duke Foundation.