Saga of jazz's Billy Tipton estate ends

SPOKANE, Wash., Dec. 10 (UPI) -- A judge in Washington state agreed with a rarely used legal theory to award the estate of bandleader Billy Tipton to three illegally adopted heirs.

The ruling in Spokane County established a legal precedent in a state that has a law that bars children who are not legally adopted from inheriting their parents' estate unless they are specifically named in the will.

The Spokane Spokesman Review was Wednesday that the ruling also closed out a very unusual legal journey for the trio, who were taken in by Tipton and Kitty Tipton Oakes, the former stripper who lived as Tipton's wife and died of cancer and dementia in 2006.

Thrown into the mix was the fact that Tipton and Kitty were never married, and Tipton turned out to be a woman who had lived for years as a man.

"Until trial, the court didn't grasp the incredible life ramifications the Tipton children had dealt with ... they should know that they did nothing wrong here. They just tried as best they could to live with the hand they were dealt," Superior Court Judge Michael Price said from the bench.

Jonathan Clark, Scott Miller and William Tipton will share in the $300,000 estate, minus attorney's fees, at a final court conference later this month.