“All that money is a problem sometimes,' said millionaire heiress Doris Duke. Hounded by gossip columns for decades—she eventually drove her car into infamy
, there was speculation that Duke had been drunk behind the wheel and that it wasn’t an accident after all.
When asked about such a possibility, Duke’s doctor, McAllister, pronounced it “unthinkable,” according to the, saying the two “were devoted.” Besides, there was “no evidence of alcohol in the blood of either Miss Duke or Tirella,” according to McAllister—who just happened to also be the state’s acting medical examiner, according toThe voluble doctor didn’t stop there. “Wealth does not bring happiness,” he told a reporter. “And I’m convinced that enormous wealth brings great handicaps.
Rumors notwithstanding, Police Chief Radice would rule Tirella’s death “an unfortunate accident.” He added, “As far as I am concerned, the case is closed.” Nugent, the attorney general, never apparently questioned the investigation, and the case was closed. Eventually, all evidence at the site that there had been an accident vanished. The station wagon was hauled away, the gates were repaired and the media disappeared. One of Tirella’s eight siblings, Alice Romano, filed two negligence suits of $1.25 million each, one against Duke and another against Avis, which provided the rental car Duke had been driving. Duke was found negligent in a civil trial and was ordered to pay $75,000 to Tirella’s family.
If Duke’s money had been a curse to herself while she was alive, it seems to have had the same effect on her distant relatives. Duke was said to change her will often, replacing her nephew Walker Inman Jr. as executor with her butler, Bernard Lafferty. Lafferty was set to receive a $5 million fee and $500,000 a year for life , but he died in 1996, and she reportedly left Inman only $7 million in a trust.
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