Will leaving estate to shelter challenged

Monday, May 17, 1999 | 11:08 a.m.

The estranged son of a man who left his $300,000 Las Vegas estate to the Animal Foundation of Nevada says his father was not competent when he made out his will weeks before his death.

Robert Schreffler III of Maryland, through his Las Vegas attorney Wesley Yamashita, filed an objection to the will Friday in the court of Chief District Judge Lee Gates.

Gates set a Sept. 8 trial date in Probate Court to determine who should receive the earthly possessions of Robert Schreffler Jr.

"There is no question he loved animals and contacted the Animal Foundation, but he also had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic," Yamashita said of the elder Schreffler after the hearing. "You have to be competent when you make out a will."

Another point of contention is that in his will Schreffler mentions his daughter, Robin, a former Las Vegan for whom he made no provisions. She has been dead a number of years. Yamashita said one determination of competency is whether a person is aware of his surroundings and knows such things as whether his children are alive or dead.

Mary Herro, longtime director of the Animal Foundation of Nevada, said her organization does not count on any promised money until it is in the bank.

"We are not going to put up any big fight over this," she said. "We'll tell the judge what Mr. Schreffler said his wishes were and we'll leave it to the court to make the right decision. Our desire all along has been to fulfill Mr. Schreffler's wishes."

One of those wishes was to find a home for his dog, Sassy, which Herro did several weeks before he died.

When Schreffler told Herro he wanted to leave his estate to the foundation, Herro asked an attorney who supports the organization if his firm would prepare the document, which it did pro bono. The will, per Schreffler's instructions, left everything to the foundation and nothing to Schreffler's two surviving children.

The money Schreffler bequeathed to the foundation is to go to the lost dogs wing at the organization's new $5 million shelter. The wing is to be named for Sassy, whom Schreffler found eating out of a garbage can as a puppy and raised to adulthood.

Another of Schreffler's dying wishes was to be cremated. However, his body has been in refrigeration at a local mortuary since his April 10 death because his other son, Rory of San Diego, has declined to sign to allow the cremation, Yamashita said. Rory, who has changed his last name, also has declined to challenge the will, the attorney said.

As a result, attorneys for both sides have agreed to have County Public Administrator Jared Shafer assigned as special trustee so that plans to dispose of Schreffler's body can be expedited. He also will look after the the assets of the estate, including the dead man's Las Vegas home, which comprises the bulk of his possessions.

Schreffler was at one time a classical trumpeter who played in the orchestra at the Chicago Civic Opera House and operated a music store in a Chicago suburb.

The former longtime resident of Morton Grove, Ill., got divorced and moved to Las Vegas in the early 1980s and lived in the home of his mother, Dorothy, who left him the house when she died in 1995.

Schreffler did not have contact with his children for a number of years and declined a friend's request to reunite him with his offspring when death was imminent.

Schreffler was 69 when he died of cancer last month. His gift was the largest bequest ever to the Animal Foundation.