Ex-Wife Bequeathed Only Rings to Her Killer : Will: Patricia Kastle worried that her former spouse would harm her, and took precautions to ensure that her property would go to her best friend, mother and charity.

Several months before world-class skier Patricia Kastle’s ex-husband gunned her down, she drafted a will to ensure that, if he did, he would get only one thing from her estate: her wedding rings.

“Lee Kastle/Strumer receives my wedding rings as a reminder (of) his marriage to me!” the 26-year-old Austrian native said in a will dated Oct. 20, 1989, and filed in Orange County Superior Court. Lee Strumer took the last name Kastle when he married Patricia Kastle four years ago.

In a later will, dated Dec. 2, she left her Newport Beach dress shop to her best friend, Ursula Neuhaus of Irvine, and expresses fear of Lee J. Kastle.

“You know that with Lee J. there is not really a normal way out,” Kastle said. “I am sure Lee J. will try to contest my will, but I would like to see that he is behind bars! If I die naturally, then it is a different story, but if he kills me and (sic) to show that I am the one that pushed him into it, then he needs to be put away behind bars.

“I made a bad choice in partner, know (sic) it is time to pay,” Kastle wrote.

Kastle asked Neuhaus to “have a party at the store and invite all our friends and loyal customers! But please, not a sad party. Have a memorable day in joy. . . .”

Patricia Kastle was the granddaughter of the founder of Kastle Skis, a well-known manufacturer, and skied for the Swiss Olympic team in 1984.

On Feb. 5, Lee Kastle, 44, chased his ex-wife around his Lido Peninsula mobile-home park with a gun, shot her to death and then killed himself. Patricia Kastle had come to the park to retrieve personal items.

The Dec. 2 will, addressed to Neuhaus and marked: “Please open only when. . . .,” said she wanted Neuhaus to be her “principal (inheritor)” by taking over ownership of La Patou Boutique in Newport Beach.

Kastle said that she was writing “in full conscience,” and hinted that Lee Kastle might have recently threatened her: “I feel fine just threatened to die (sic), but other than that I feel very calm and I know what I am doing,” she said.

Patricia Kastle obtained a court order Dec. 11 to keep him away, but she complained in court papers that despite the order, he slashed her tires and once tried to drive her off the road.

Kastle also said in the Dec. 2 will that she and her ex-husband “have a contract where he signed that La Patou Boutique is not his,” and she said the store and all its bank accounts would go to Neuhaus.

Patricia Kastle’s divorce lawyer, Harvey E. Berman, said the couple’s divorce settlement, which became final in January, gave Patricia Kastle the shop and assigned Lee Kastle a percentage of the proceeds from its sale. Berman said he does not know if a special administrator, appointed at Neuhaus’ request, intends to sell the shop now.

Patricia Kastle bequeathed her jewelry to her mother in Switzerland and her clothes to the Salvation Army. She instructed that $20,000 in cash she kept in a safety deposit box be given to the Red Cross “for people in need.”

Berman said Wednesday that he believed Patricia Kastle’s mother might challenge the will, but now knows that will not happen. He said he knows of no other threatened challenges. Lee Kastle’s estate is being handled by the public administrator.