On June 6, 1987, George A. Magoon Sr. died of a cardiac infarction. For the next six years, his estate was locked up in probate. Claimants to his estate were many, including his third ex–wife, Velma Lee, incarcerated at the time in federal prison on a drug offense; son George Jr., also known as Keoki, a product of George Sr.’s second marriage; George Sr.’s second ex–wife, Nancy, who had been granted a 30 percent share of George Sr.’s chief asset 40 acres of land at Mahai’ula, North Kona in settlement of their divorce; a daughter, Tessa, by George Sr.’s first marriage, whom he appeared to have disinherited; and a second daughter, Caprice, by his second wife. Any sale of the property, and division of the proceeds, had, then, to be approved by the Third Circuit Court.
The land came into the hands of the Magoon family in 1936, when George Sr.’s mother bought it for $1,000. Language in the deed stated that she wished it to be handed down to her two sons, George and J. Alfred. When Alfred committed suicide in 1943, George became the sole heir to the property.
George Magoon Sr. led a colorful life, which helps explain much of the controversy that surrounded probate of his will. In a deposition, a lifelong acquaintance and relative by marriage, Frank W. Hustace, Jr., described Magoon as “a very complex person. He used to like to live dangerously. That was his manner. He was a womanizer and – with a colossal ego.”
Magoon divorced Nancy, his second wife, in the late 1970s; as a condition of the divorce, 30 percent of Mahai’ula was to go to her, with George Sr. retaining 70 percent. When subdivision of the property proved impractical, the family court judge ordered George and Nancy to establish a legal partnership, called Mahai’ula, which took title to the land. George was the general partner, responsible for managing the property (a tour operator brought people to the site for commercial luaus and recreational outings), but soon after the divorce, he relocated to Texas.
Before George’s divorce from Nancy was final, he married wife No. 3, Velma Lee Shuey, on March 13, 1977, in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Shuey is a character in her own right. In 1975, she had been “convicted in federal court in Honolulu of bringing women from Texas to Hawai’i for immoral purposes.” By April 1977, her appeal of the conviction having run its course, Shuey began serving time in Fort Worth, Texas. She was released in 1978, at which time she and Magoon started up a tropical plant business in Texas.
Apparently to still questions about his marriage in 1980, Magoon wedded Shuey a second time – this time at Mahai’ula, in a ceremony presided over by Rev. Leon Sterling. In 1981, with the tropical plant business in Texas having failed, Shuey and Magoon separately filed for bankruptcy.
Although Magoon and Shuey had signed an antenuptial agreement, with each one renouncing any claim on the property of the other, in 1983, Magoon gave Shuey half of his 70 percent share of the Mahai’ula partnership. Shuey returned to the Mainland, where she once more ran afoul of the law this time, according to court records, for trafficking in illicit drugs. Throughout most of the period of the probate, her address was in care of federal prison.
In March of 1987, Magoon was granted a divorce from Shuey, but before the property settlement could be made, Magoon died. The chief asset of the estate was, of course, his stake in the land at Mahai’ula. His will called for his share to be divided between daughter Caprice and son George Jr.
Because there had been no final settlement of marital property, Shuey claimed she still had a half-interest in George Sr.’s stake in the Mahai’ula partnership. And, because she had been married to George Sr. at the time he conveyed a 30 percent share of the land to ex–wife Nancy, Shuey staked a claim to that as well. Ultimately, Shuey was promised $2.5 million from any sale of the property, with the remainder being divided between George Jr. and Caprice. Tessa received nothing.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 5, Number 10 April 1995