Lawyer Killed Over Will Oversight, Police Say

A single word apparently cost 81-year-old lawyer John D. Goodin his life.

Goodin left out the word “stock” from a woman’s will, and her ex-husband, Walter Shell, believed that omission cost him up to $100,000.

On Thursday, police say, an enraged Shell went to Goodin’s law office and shot him to death along with an insurance agent who happened to be there. Shell was charged with murder and jailed without bail.

Shell and his ex-wife, Katie Roselle Shell, had been divorced about a decade but remained friendly. They lived close to each other, and he helped care for her after she was stricken with cancer.

In November, five days before Shell died, Goodin visited her in the hospital and revised her will, removing her ex-husband as executor and replacing him with a neighbor designated by Katie Shell.

She apparently wanted a third party to handle her estate because of problems between her ex-husband and their two daughters, said Fred Lance, a lawyer who sometimes worked with Goodin.

Walter Shell and his daughters equally divided $12,000 from an insurance policy. He also was left a car and a lawn mower.

The revised will also stipulated that Walter Shell was to receive “all monies” after the legal costs for the estate were paid. His daughters challenged the will, claiming that because the word “stock” was not included, Shell was not entitled to any of the $100,000 in shares their mother owned.

A judge agreed and gave the stock to the daughters.

Goodin was shot in the head, and the insurance agent, Paul S. Keyser III, 35, was shot in the chest, authorities said. Shell later turned himself in.