On July 24 I had a phone conversation with Kerry. The gist of the conversation was, "Pick a side." Kerry believes that my lack of a response or silence is the same as saying I agree with everything Rob has been saying from day one. I have never said one way or the other what I agree or disagree with.

Rob has raised some interesting questions about the estate. Questions Kerry has steadfastly refused to provide answers to. Rob has accused him of mishandling the estate and called into question his honesty and integrity. All along Kerry has let him slap him around with these claims and he just sits there and takes it.

Kerry's law firm has given him bad advice from the start as well, basically telling him to let them handle everything (at $350/hr). "Just hide behind my pants legs and Eden's skirt and we'll protect you. Oh, by the way here's another bill for our services, not including this bit of legal advice which will be on our next bill." My never to be humble opinion is that Mr. Green has been somewhat complicit in the whole ordeal. My guess is that as a junior partner at Eden Rose Brown part of his responsibilities to the firm is to produce billable hours and he saw in Rob an unwitting cash cow. I can see P. Freeman Green (and how pretentious is using the initial of your first name? Once again, just my opinion) in his office each morning opening his e-mails and thrusting his fist into the air and exclaiming, "Ka-ching!", every time he clicked on an e-mail from Robert Burtis. He was more than willing to exchange parries with Rob at $350.00 per hour per e-mail. Of course he told Kerry to not respond. "We'll take care of everything."

Not a bad day's work.

Kerry and Rob have both come up with documents reference the real estate transactions in Florida and Oregon. The documents each have differing information. Rob's seem to bring up questions about ownership of the homes before during and after Liz's involvement with them and whether Kerry had some prior interest in them. Either he found a web site with some bad information on them or he did some digital forging of them, or they are accurate. If my integrity was being questioned I would demand from Rob a list of the websites he got these documents from (he says that they are all public information sites) so I and the rest of the beneficiaries could judge for ourselves the accuracy or inaccuracy of the information; and if the information is inaccurate, so I could take steps to correct it.

As far as the sale of the Deland house, I assumed that maybe we were getting what we could out of the house (although I doubted the realtors marketing efforts- any open houses held? Doubtful). That is until I read the email exchanges between Rob and the broker who said, "Well heck! I had made friends with the lovely lady who lived there (even though I can't for the life of me remember her name) even sending flowers when she got sick. I was surprised I did not get the listing (and a little pissed). It should have sold at about $135k." and "all it needed was that awful paneling down in the living room!!!!! Terrific bones with a strong history!!!" and of course, "What a steal". This until she realized who Robert Burtis was and all of a sudden went into serious damage control mode.

Maggi e-mailing Kerry:

"I'm stunned that Robert Burtis, someone whom I thought was a potential buyer of historic homes, used my emails to stir up trouble for your family and especially my excellent agent, Ann Nehrig. Robert began emailing me early in the year after the 503 N. Clara house went on the market. He appeared to be interested in historic properties, especially that house. His questions led me to believe he was a serious buyer so obviously I always answered his questions."

I'm guessing the initial phone conversation to Kerry went something like this:

Maggi: "Kerry? Hi, Maggi Hall here. Kerry, I think I stepped on it big time. Why? Well apparently your brother Robert was posing as a potential buyer for the house. Granted he used his real and full name in the emails but I'm a busy woman. I just figured it was a coincidence that that a totally unrelated Burtis was interested in buying the house. So I say he was posing as a buyer. But anyways I told him the house should have sold for $135k, and that it had terrific bones with a strong history. Those are just meaningless real estate terms we use to try and impress buyers. Anywho, I now realize I screwed up and spoke to my realtor Ann Nehrig who hasn't closed a sale in over three months. She told me she was low balling the price and basically ignoring the appraisal to get a quick sale and a quick commission check. Not a bad idea on her part as she realizes that when the buyer does some cosmetic work on the house he will turn around and flip it in six months when real estate prices have started to rebound and will most likely use her as the listing agent earning her another commission (and I as her broker would of course share in that commission Winking smile emoticon). I figured if Robert was an actual potential buyer I could start a bidding war, even though the house is still under contract. I realize this is against Florida real estate laws and could cause me to lose my license, but what the hell. Money is money.

Anyway Kerry, I just feel awful. Let me know what I can do to make things right. Maybe I could do a little back pedaling in an email and make it look like I knew what I was doing and was just playing Robert."

Both Kerry and Rob have used the same argument reference choosing sides. In this they are in complete agreement. Kerry says if you say nothing then you must believe Rob and all of his accusations. Rob says if you say nothing then you agree with and support him. For the most part I have a feeling those of us who have not responded have been watching from the sidelines of this tennis match watching the volleys back and forth with curiosity and a little amusement. Those who have spoken up have felt the "Wrath of Rob" (see responses to Larry and Scott's input) and have been drawn into the battle of the emails with him. I assume mine are forthcoming.

At the end of our phone conversation on Saturday Kerry requested that I send out an email with my feelings and beliefs to explain to the other beneficiaries my opinions. So, here they are:

Kerry-

I think Kerry thought he was doing the right thing in most instances. He had had successes in other real estate transactions (house flipping) and figured he could help both Liz and himself out again. Then the real estate market collapsed and he lost both of them a lot of money. I also believe he thought he was doing what he thought was best for Liz, basing some of his decisions on Liz's Alzheimer's fueled claims of abandonment and mistreatment by Charles and Katherine without investigating the claims to find out how accurate they were. In my job I have dealt with many "wanderers" as victims in the latter stages of Alzheimer's are often referred to, when they have walked away from their homes without anyone's knowledge. Putting her in a "Home" the last month of her life was done for her own safety and comfort. In the end she spent the remaining months of her life comfortable, secure and loved which I believe is most important.

Rob-

I believe Rob took up this cause in a sincere search for the truth and some answers which Kerry did say he would be more than willing to provide us. Rob's minimal amount of trust proceeds eliminates financial greed as a reason for his crusade. I do think that there are other issues between the two of them that came up shortly before the estate problem that have fueled his fervor, but that is between the two of them. As far as Rob's email campaign against Scott. I disagree with it. I think Scott was honestly just trying to put forth some ideas in reference to the Deland house, although the use of the phrase "Rob so kindly provided us", was an unfortunate choice of words. Attacking Scott accomplishes nothing. Scott and his family are dealing with stresses Rob, Kerry & I should pray we never have to deal with. On this topic I say, back off, Rob.

In conclusion:

Kerry you wanted a response from me and there it is. Sorry it wasn't sent sooner. I asked you during our conversation why you don't just provide the information that Rob has requested. I also said that if I was in your shoes and I had done nothing wrong I would provide everything I possibly could and would stick it in Rob's face and ask him, "What you got to say now, Rob?" Given accurate, truthful documentation, what would he have to say? He would be forced to back down. Your response to me was, "Nothing will ever be good enough for Rob. He will find something wrong with it or say that it's not enough. Nothing's going to make him happy or satisfy him." That's your answer for not providing the information? If that is all that's stopping you from providing the information then you don't give the rest of us beneficiaries enough credit. If we could see the information and were satisfied with and understand the answers then I think we can decide for ourselves. If Rob is not satisfied then that is his problem and I think we would all tell him to give it a rest and let us all get on with our lives. But refusing to provide the answers/information he's asking for only makes us wonder. Do the right thing and provide the information so we CAN all get on with our lives and start healing.

Just my opinion (which Kerry asked for).