Bitter feud between legal adviser and woman’s nephew reported
Editor’s Note: Camden attorney and civic leader Maud Crawford vanished March 2, 1957. Her disappearance has been researched for decades by Beth Brickell, a filmmaker and former reporter who grew up in the Ouachita County city.
From July to December 1986, the Arkansas Gazette ran “Mystery at Camden,” an 18-part series by Brickell about the mystery. The series was slightly edited and compiled into a book, “The Disappearance of Maud Crawford.” Its chapters are reprinted with permission starting June 19 on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
ARKANSAS GAZETTE Wednesday, July 30, 1986
CAMDEN—Evidence indicates that Mike Berg sought to gain his aunt’s assets by instructing their mutual accountant, George Bowers, to draw up three deeds between 1951 and 1954 and have her sign them, including one that conveyed 21,211 acres of oil royalties and timberland to Berg.
On the discovery of that deed in the spring of 1955, two of the three nieces who were to inherit the Rose Berg estate, Jeanette Simpson and Marian Peltason, came to Camden from California to have their aunt declared legally incompetent and to seek a way to challenge the validity of the deed. Crawford, an expert lawyer on titles and abstracts, befriended Rose Berg’s nieces in the ensuing fight with Berg.
Stanley R. Peltason, widower of Marian Peltason, now deceased, accompanied his wife to Camden in 1955. Peltason owned a television service business at Los Angeles at the time. He now lives at Santa Barbara, Cal.
‘HATED MIKE BERG’
“The whole thing revolved around Mrs. Berg’s mental capacity,” Peltason said in a recent interview. “She actually hated Mike Berg, had no use for him when she was of sound mind,” he added.
Also accompanying the nieces to Camden was Samuel B. Schleifer, who at the time was married to Jeanette Simpson’s daughter. In the 1950s, Schleifer owned an appliance store at Santa Barbara. He now lives at nearby Ventura, Cal. and recently recalled his earlier involvement with the Rose Berg heirs.
‘LOOKED LIKE A MAD WOMAN’
“Stan was tied up in the business in L.A., so it seemed to fall on my shoulders to go down there two or three, maybe four times a year, to check on Aunt Rose. Although she was slipping, she seemed to have her lucid moments and to be reasonably okay. Then, the next thing I knew, Aunt Rose looked like she was a mad woman. Her hair was standing up on end, she wasn’t able to sleep, she wasn’t able to eat, and she was incoherent. A different doctor [retained by Mike Berg] had been put in charge of her care after Maud disappeared. He was giving her a new drug that he claimed would help with her memory.
“Then, the same trip I went to the courthouse and found that, with one stroke of the pen, Aunt Rose had turned over everything to Mike Berg. From that time on, I was scared for my life. In the mornings, when I would go out of the hotel to my car, I’d check under the car and open the hood to see if there were any strange wires.”
RECALLS NIECE’S VISIT
James Harvey Rumph, Ouachita County Tax Assessor from 1953 to 1978, recently recalled a visit to his office at that time by Marian Peltason. “One morning these people came in my office. ‘I’m Marian Newman,’ she said.”
Marian Peltason was familiar in the town as the daughter of A. (Kid) Newman, former owner of a popular Camden café when the Newman family lived in the city.
“She introduced me to her husband,” Rumph said. “And there was another couple. Marian said to me, ‘Do you know the land my aunt owns out on Maul Road? Would you mind taking me out to see it?’ I drove them out there, and then showed them some other land. We were gone maybe an hour. About 10 minutes after I let them out, my phone rang, and it was Mike Berg.
“‘Hoss, you busy?’
‘No, not too much.’
“‘I’m going to come by in my car. Meet me at the west side of the courthouse.’
“Mike called everybody ‘Hoss.’ I got in the car, and we drove on off.
“‘Hoss, what were you doing showing those people around?’
“‘What do you mean,’ I said.
“‘Hoss, don’t show them anything.’
“‘Well, Mike, I thought they were supposed to own that property out there.’ “‘Don’t show them.’ “I never saw those people again. I think he may have been rough on them.”
‘THERE WAS NO ATTORNEY’
Stanley Peltason talked about returning to Camden to have Rose Berg declared incompetent. “There was no attorney in Camden that would represent an anti-Mike Berg interest,” he said.
The deputy prosecuting attorney at the time was a prominent Camden lawyer, Bruce Streett.
Peltason recalled seeking representation from Streett. “Bruce Streett was our attorney for two days, and then he calls up and says, ‘Sorry, we can’t represent you.’ He was asked at the time, ‘Can you represent us knowing that we are fighting Mike Berg and company?’ And he says, ‘Yes, I can.’ Two days later, ‘Sorry, they have appointed me one of the attorneys for Mrs. Berg’s estate.’ As fast as we would do something, they would counteract the thing.”
SIGNS $250,000 CHECK
Peltason recalled drawing up a check on Rose Berg’s account and presenting it to her for her signature. “I think it was Bruce who recommended that we try to see if she was capable of signing anything. I had her check made out to me for $250,000. She signed it—no questions asked. I then wrote ‘void’ across it.”
The nieces enlisted the services of Joe and Emon Mahony, father and son partners in a law firm, Mahony and Yocum, at El Dorado.
HOLD COMPETENCY HEARING
The competency hearing was held in July 1955 before Judge R. W. Launius of the Ouachita County Chancery Probate Court. At that time, testimony was presented by two Camden physicians, Dr. R. B. Robins and Dr. Tom J. Meek, supporting the argument by the nieces that Rose Berg was incompetent to handle her business affairs or to care for her personal needs.
The nieces requested that the judge remove management of their aunt’s assets from Berg’s accountant, George Bowers, and that he appoint Union National Bank of Little Rock to be guardian of the estate.
Thomas Gaughan, Berg’s attorney, reportedly objected to the guardianship of the Little Rock bank. According to Sam Schleifer, who was present at the hearing, “Gaughan’s legal argument was there was a big fee involved in handling the estate, and he felt that it belonged in Ouachita County.”
Stanley Peltason, also present at the hearing, said of the objection, “Of course, what they wanted was control over the estate. They had Dr. Robins testify that it would be better medically for her if the guardianship were handled in Camden. It didn’t make any sense.”
APPOINTS LOCAL GUARDIAN
Judge Launius appointed local businessman Ed Pace as guardian of Rose Berg’s estate. Pace, an insurance and real estate agent, was a long-time business associate of Mike Berg. For years, his firm had handled all insurance and real estate sales for Berg’s extensive properties.
Pace retained three attorneys to represent Rose Berg’s interests—Mike Berg’s attorney Thomas Gaughan, Bruce Streett, and Lamar Smead.
According to several judges and lawyers with whom the Pace appointment has been discussed, the appointment could have been appealed to the state Supreme Court on the ground of conflict of interest.
Emon Mahony, who still practices law at El Dorado, revealed in a telephone interview that he knew Pace had a close relationship with Berg when he was appointed to the Rose Berg guardianship. And then Mahony refused to talk further about the matter.
At the competency hearing, the heirs requested that Crawford be appointed guardian of Mrs. Berg to see that she would be properly cared for and maintained.
“They didn’t want Maud in there, but to satisfy us partially, they appointed her the guardian of Rose Berg’s person,” Peltason said.
VISITS IN CALIFORNIA
Shortly after the competency hearing, Crawford flew to California for a civic club convention, and while there visited both the Simpsons and Peltasons. At that time, she reassured the heirs about the questionable deed.
“When she got out to California,” Peltason recalls, “I told Maud, ‘Look Maud, you know what this is all about.’ She said, ‘Yes, I do, and don’t worry. When the proper time comes, I’ll tell everything I know about it.’”
Schleifer recalls a similar conversation. “Maud Crawford told me on a few occasions, ‘One of these days in court, when the estate is being settled, I’m going to say what I know about all the crooked dealings.’”
According to Peltason, the heirs decided to stay in ‘constant contact’ with Crawford and to trust her advice. He said they relied on her judgment that, at a later time, they would be in a better position to challenge the deed and to re-establish their inheritance with her help.
CRAWFORD DISAPPEARANCE
But a year and a half after Rose Berg was declared incompetent, Crawford disappeared.
All copies of Rose Berg’s will vanished at the same time.
In the absence of a will, what remained of Rose Berg’s assets, valued at more than $7 million (not counting the portion that had been deeded to Mike Berg), was to be divided among seven nieces and nephews.
OFFERS SETTLEMENT
Berg offered a cash settlement to the seven nieces and nephews in exchange for a relinquishment of all claims to their aunt’s estate. According to Peltason and Schleifer, concurrent with the settlement offer was the inference that there might be a “possible” will signed by Rose Berg not yet produced naming Berg as their aunt’s sole heir.
Without Crawford, the nieces believed it was impossible to challenge either the deed or any new will. According to Lucille Glazer, “When Maud disappeared we had nobody to vouch for us.”
Moreover, there were considerations of finances and health. They were people of modest means, and two of the nieces, Marian Peltason and Jeanette Simpson, had suffered heart attacks during the three-year fight with Mike Berg.
BASED ON GUARDIAN’S ESTIMATE
Berg offered a settlement of $1 million to the seven remaining relatives of Rose Berg. It seemed generous given that it was based on a $1.6 million value placed on Rose Berg’s assets by Ed Pace in a guardian’s inventory of her assets. It has been verified recently by Pace that this figure of $1.6 million was an underestimate of Rose Berg’s assets.
Moreover, it has been learned that the inventory only covered the personal Rose Berg estate and did not include any assets inherited from her husband. Both C.D. Sanders, an accountant who kept books for the Rose Berg Estate, and George Bowers have confirmed that those interests, much of which had not yet been conveyed to Berg, were kept separately and intact by Bowers as part of the Henry Berg estate.
Judge Launius now deemed Rose Berg, declared incompetent three years before, competent for the purpose of making a $1 million gift to her seven heirs and settling her estate. This in spite of the fact that legal sources confirm that it is inconsistent and, therefore, illegal for an incompetent person to be considered competent for purposes of making a gift of her estate.
The three nieces each received $187,000.
In a companion deed to the settlement, signed by Rose Berg, all of her remaining property was conveyed to Berg “in consideration of the love and affection I bear for him.”
Rose Berg died July 6, 1962. Crawford had been missing for five years.
Ed Pace received $116,000 in fees as guardian of the estate. His wife, Marie, who assumed Crawford’s responsibilities as guardian of the person of Rose Berg, received $17,700, the same amount Crawford would have received.
Gaughan, Streett, and Smead received $143,000 each in attorneys’ fees. Gaughan received an additional $20,000 in the form of a loan from the estate. In the opinion of two judges, a loan to an attorney of an estate by the estate is illegal at worst and highly unethical at best.
Gaughan committed suicide August 12, 1975 when Mike Berg was in critical health and would die on November 16, 1975. After Gaughan’s death, a lawsuit was brought against his estate by members of his family for
mismanagement of a trusteeship for which he had been responsible since 1944. They charged that Gaughan had appropriated oil and timber assets of the trust and finally ceded all its properties to his wife in 1971. An out-of-court settlement was reached.
Bruce Streett is a retired judge living at Russellville. He declined to be interviewed about his representation of the Rose Berg estate or about his representation of the Rose Berg’s nieces for two days.
Emon Mahony still practices at El Dorado and declined requests to discuss his representation of the nieces, citing client confidentiality.
Bowers, who died December 30, was interviewed for this investigation three weeks
before his death. Bowers confirmed the existence of a Rose Berg will and acknowledged that the beneficiaries were to have been her three nieces.
Pace is retired and living at Camden and assisted with the recent investigation.
Next: The police investigation.
Beth Brickell recently published “Solving the Maud Crawford Puzzle,” her fourth work on the mystery. The other titles are “The Disappearance of Maud Crawford,” “In Their Own Voice: Interviews from the Maud Crawford Investigation,” and “Most Credible Conclusions from the Maud Crawford Interviews.” The books are available at luminousfilms.net.