Biography
After Howard Hughes died, an intensive search began for his Last Will and Testament. Speculation became rampant that Hughes may have written a holographic will, which was recognized in the states in which he had holdings. Two weeks after his death, an envelope containing 3 handwritten pages dated March 19, 1968 and signed "Howard R. Hughes" was discovered on the desk of an official at the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. Along with The Church, Rice University, the University of California, the University of Texas, the University of Nevada, and the Boy Scouts of America, the "Mormon Will" granted gas station owner Melvin Dummar a 1/16th share of Hughes's $2 billion fortune. Dummar recounted to reporters that in December 1967, he found a man wandering along U.S. Highway 95. The man asked for a ride to Las Vegas. When Dummar dropped him off at the Sands Hotel, the man told him that he was Howard Hughes, but Dummar didn't believe him.
Rife with misspellings, the "Mormon Will" contained many discrepancies: it referred to the H-4 - the massive military transport plane Hughes flew in Long Beach Harbor on November 2, 1947 - as "The Spruce Goose", a moniker Hughes was known to detest; it named ex-wives Ella Rice and Jean Peters beneficiaries, even though their divorce settlements barred them from laying claim to his estate; it named Hughes's cousin, William Lummis, a beneficiary, even though Hughes was known to have nothing to do with his relatives; it named Noah Dietrich, whom he had fired in 1957, executor. Lastly, written on the envelope was a request that David O. McKay, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, deliver the "Will" to the Clark County (Nevada) District Court upon Hughes's death; McKay died in 1970. Despite the errors, The Church filed the "Will" for probate with the Clark County District Court on April 29, 1976.
After the FBI found his thumb print on the envelope containing the "Will", Dummar, who initially denied any prior knowledge of the "Will", said that a "mysterious man" had dropped the envelope off at Dummar's gas station after badgering Dummar with questions about Hughes. Although he said the encounter had left him "scared to death", Dummar steam-opened the envelope, read the "Will", then delivered it to The Church. The "mysterious man" - identified by Dummar's attorney Roger Dutson as LeVane Forsythe - claimed in a deposition to have been Hughes's "secret courier" for years. On June 8, 1978, after deliberating for just 11 hours, a jury found the "Will" to be a forgery.
In 2004, Guido Deiro, son of Guido Deiro, said that he flew Hughes to the Cottontail Ranch brothel, 150 miles north of Las Vegas, on December 29, 1967. He said he napped while Hughes enjoyed himself. After Deiro awoke, he said the madam, Beverly Harrell, told him that Hughes had left; Dummar said he found Hughes 7 miles south of the Ranch. Inexplicably, Deiro did not search for Hughes, but flew back to Las Vegas. Upon his return, he said that a subordinate of Hughes executive Frank Gay ordered Deiro to surrender his flight log to erase any evidence of the trip.
Bolstered by Deiro's story and a book by Gary Magnesen, Dummar sued Lummis, and Gay's estate for fraud and conspiracy to conceal evidence which proved that the "Mormon Will" was genuine. On January 9, 2007, the United States District Court for the District of Utah dismissed the suit.
Dummar's tale was the basis for Melvin and Howard (1980). He died on December 9, 2018 at a hospice in Pahrump, Nevada.
