Ranch heiress Sarita Kenedy East left her fortune to a foundation controlled by a Trappist monk, and more than 200 people claimed to be her heirs

Sarita Kenedy East, granddaughter of the rancher Mifflin Kenedy, was heir to part of the Kenedy Ranch and had no children. In 1948 Brother Leo Gregory, a Trappist monk raising money for new monasteries, met her and became her adviser and travelling companion. Her 1948 will gave the La Parra ranch headquarters and 10,000 acres to the Oblate fathers, 13,000 acres to the Diocese of Corpus Christi, and the rest to relatives. On 21 January 1960 she created the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation. A 1960 will left most of her estate to it, and codicils gave Brother Leo and the industrialist J. Peter Grace more control. Shortly before her death she made Brother Leo the foundation's sole member. She died of cancer in New York on 11 February 1961 with Brother Leo at her bedside. Within months her sister-in-law Elena Suess Kenedy, the Turcotte family and the Diocese of Corpus Christi sued, alleging Leo and Grace exerted undue influence while she was disoriented by medication. More than 200 people claimed to be heirs. A 1964 settlement gave about $100 million to the South Texas group; Grace took oil royalties of up to $14.4 million for a separate foundation. Brother Leo opposed it and appealed. The Texas Supreme Court ruled against him, and in June 1981 the US Supreme Court declined his appeal. The estate, held in escrow, went to the foundation in 1982. The foundation runs the southern section of the Kenedy Ranch, about 235,000 acres.