Henry Flagler's widow left $5 million to her new husband in a codicil signed eight days before she died, and her family dug up her body

Mary Lily Kenan married Henry Flagler, co-founder of Standard Oil, on 24 August 1901. He died in 1913 and left most of his wealth to her. In late 1916 she married Robert Worth Bingham, a Louisville judge. She died at her Louisville home in July 1917, about eight months later, with an estate of almost $100 million. About a month after her death Bingham filed a codicil said to have been signed eight days before she died. It left him $5 million "to be absolutely his." Her family hired the detective William Burns. Her body was exhumed at night under armed guard in September 1917 at the request of Graham Kenan, her sister's husband^†. A New York pathologist found she died of endocarditis. Her doctors had given brain edema and myocarditis. Burns's report and the autopsy report were never released. The family dropped its court case against Bingham. He used the money to buy the Louisville Courier-Journal and Times and became Franklin Roosevelt's ambassador to Britain in 1933. Her brother, sisters, niece and the University of North Carolina received the rest^†. A trust held her Florida companies, including the Florida East Coast Railway. The Kenan Professorship Fund she endowed still supplements professors' salaries at Chapel Hill. Her Palm Beach house, Whitehall, is a museum.