Melvin Dummar

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Melvin Earl Dummar (born August 28, 1944) is a Willard, Utah service station owner who claimed that one evening in December 1967 he had picked up Howard Hughes along a desolate road in the Nevada desert. Dummar reportedly found a solitary and lost Hughes lying on the side of a stretch of U.S. Highway 95 about 150 miles (240 km) north of Las Vegas, Nevada, near Lida Junction. Hughes asked Dummar to take him to the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. It was at that time Hughes had revealed his true identity to Dummar.

After Hughes's death in April 1976, a handwritten will was discovered in the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah. The will, dated to 1968, had many strange discrepancies. It named Noah Dietrich as an executor, despite the fact that Dietrich had left Hughes' employ on bad terms over a decade before. It left money to the LDS Church, despite the fact that Hughes had never been a member and showed no interest in the church. It left money to his two ex-wives, Ella Rice and Jean Peters, even though both women had alimony settlements that barred claims on Hughes' estate. The will was rife with misspellings, including misspelling the name of Hughes' cousin. It called Hughes' famous flying boat, the Hughes H-4 Hercules, the "spruce goose"--a derisive nickname that Hughes had always despised.^[1]

Most oddly, the will left one "Melvin DuMar" of Gabbs, Nevada one-sixteenth of Hughes's estate, worth over $2 billion. Dummar (whose inheritance would have been $156 million) originally claimed that he knew nothing about the will and told his story of picking up Hughes by the side of the road. Afterwards, when authorities discovered Dummar's fingerprint on the envelope, he said that a well-dressed man had dropped off the will, sealed in an envelope, on the desk of his service station with written instructions for him to deliver it to the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which had also been left 1/16th of the estate.^[2]

Investigation revealed that Dummar's wife Bonnie Dummar had worked for a magazine called Millionaire that was distributed to wealthy Americans, and that her job had allowed her access to Hughes memos and Hughes' signature. Bonnie Dummar denied forging the will.^[3]

The document, which became known as the "Mormon Will", was ruled a forgery by a Nevada jury in June 1978 and Dummar received nothing. No criminal charges were filed. A 1980 feature film directed by Jonathan Demme and titled Melvin and Howard starring actors Paul Le Mat as Dummar and Jason Robards, Jr. as Hughes, further examines this story.

In early 2005, retired FBI agent Gary Magnesen claimed to have found new evidence that Dummar's story was true. Magnesen stated that Hughes's closest employees remembered him entering the Sands early one morning in December 1967 and stating that he had been picked up by Dummar in the desert. Furthermore, Hughes had purchased interests in mines located near the area where Dummar said he found him.^[4]^[5]

On June 12, 2006, Dummar filed suit in the United States district court for Utah against William Lummis, the primary beneficiary of the Hughes estate, and Frank Gay, the former chief operating officer of a number of Hughes entities, claiming that the two had conspired to defraud Dummar out of his rightful share of the Hughes estate by presenting perjured testimony and concealing evidence in the 1978 trial. Dummar's complaint demanded the $156 million which he would have received from the estate, plus punitive damages and interest.

On January 9, 2007 a judge threw out the lawsuit. Judge Bruce Jenkins of Federal District Court said that the claim by the man, Melvin Dummar, had been “fully and fairly litigated” in Las Vegas in 1978, when a jury decided the purported will was invalid.^[6]

Dummar currently lives in Brigham City, Utah with his wife Bonnie.

[edit] The "Mormon Will"

The text of the handwritten document known as the "Mormon Will":

Last Will and Testament

I, Howard R. Hughes, being of sound mind and disposing mind and memory, not acting under duress, fraud or the undue influence of any person whomever, and being a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, declare that this is to be my last will and revolt [sic] all other wills previously made by me -

After my death, my estate is to be devided [sic] as follows -

First: one-forth [sic] of all my assets to go to Hughes Medical Institute of Miami -

Second: one-eight [sic] of assets to be devided [sic] among the University of Texas - Rice Institute of Technology of Houston - the University of Nevada - and the University of Calif.

Third: one-sixteenth to Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - David O. McKay - Pre.

Forth [sic]: one-sixteenth to establish a home for orphan cildren [sic] -

Fifth: one-sixteenth of assets to go to Boy Scouts of America.

Sixth: one-sixteenth to be devided [sic] among Jean Peters of Los Angeles and Ella Rice of Houston -

Seventh: one-sixteenth of assets to William R. Lommis [sic] of Houston, Texas -

Eighth: one-sixteenth to go to Melvin DuMar [sic] of Gabbs, Nevada -

Ninth: one-sixteenth to be devided [sic] among my personal aides at the time of my death -

Tenth: one-sixteenth to be used as school scholarship fund for entire country - the spruce goose is to be given to the City of Long Beach, Calif.

The remainder of my estate is to be devided [sic] among the key men of the company's [sic] I own at the time of my death.

I appoint Noah Dietrich as the executer[sic] of this will -

Signed the 19 [sic] day of March 1968

Howard R. Hughes

[edit] References

Hack, Richard. Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters. The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire. New Millennium Press, Beverly Hills, 2001.