Statp Held Key to Hughes Fate
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StaTp‘i Held Key to Hughes Fate By Bill Richards if th, ink in the stamp was used be- mal manner into any Model R series Freese charged in court today that Washington Feet IStall Writer fore or after 1969. The Mormon will is machine and meter combination," the Dummar learned all he could about LAS VEGAS, Jan. 27—Despite . dated 1968. memo said. A company spokesman Hughes to help his wife write the In addition, Pitney-Bowes said in said the meter in the Desert Inn in three-page Mormon will. Freese al- three days of inconclusive testimony 1968 was the Model R series. leged that Dummar researched the in a court here about the validity of a three-page memo to List's office Jan. 17 that there was only one post. Pitney-Bowes has not had access to material on Hughes while attending the so-called Morman will of Howard Weber State University in Utah and Hughes, investigators said privately age meter at the Desert Inn where the envelope containing the stamp. Hughes lived in seclusion during the The spokesman said company experts reading the book, 'Hoax," written by today they can now tell for certain convicted Hughes' autobiography for- the will is a fake. time the alleged will was drawn up. worked from photographs of the enve- The company supplied the six-digit lope that showed the stamp en the ger Clifford Irving, and then gave The will is one of 35 that have been identification number of that machine back across the envelope's flap. The enough information to his wife, Bon- received at the Clark County Court- to List and others involved in the spokesman said Pitney-Bowes would nie, so that she could write the docu- house here purporting to have been case, a Pitney-Bowes spokesman said not offer its own opinion on whether ment. drawn up by the billionaire before he today. the stamp and its date Were genuine. Dummar denied the accusation. died last April 5. The authenticity of Investigators here said that while The will and envelope are being Ee- all but the Morman will has been dis- the numbers of the postage meter counted by officials. ambled by the FBI at List's request. stamp on the envelope are smeared, The Nevada attorney general is con- For the last three days attorneys their sequence conflicts with the De- sidering criminal indictments in the here have been closely questioning sert Inn meter. Morman will case. gas station operator Melvin Dummar, Pitney-Bowes declined today to say Dummar, 32, has insisted during named a beneficiary in the Morman whether the postage meter stamp or questioning here that he did not write will, about his role in its discovery. the will is a fraud. But knowledgable the will. He has acknowledged that he Attorneys trying to break Dummar's experts connected with the company's delivered the document to Mormon story that he was given the will be a investigation said the evidence casts Church headquarters in Salt Lake mysterious stranger at, his Willard, strong doubt on the will's validity and City where it was found and that he Utah, gas station now believe the an- that an examination of the ink would opened the envelope and read the swer lies in a postage meter stamp on be conclusive. will. the back of the envelope that con- The memo to List by the Stamford, In careful questioning here Wednes- tained the will. , Conn., postage meter company, also day, Paul Freese, attorney for three of Although it has not been brought raised another question about the Hughes' relatives claiming a portion up in court, the Pitney-Bowes Co., stamp found on the envelope. of Hughes' $2 billion fortune, led which manufactured the postage me- "The location of the image on the Dummar through the series of events ter, notified Nevada Attorney General envelope shows} that the envelope after he' discovered the will in his Robert List that it can definitely tell could not have been inserted in a nor- service station. ' .