Page:Wright v. Wright.pdf/2

106 permitted to share in the other's estate, to collect insurance on his life, or otherwise profit by the crime, when there has been a proper judicial determination in a civil proceeding that the one seeking to recover is the killer of the one from whom he seeks to inherit.
 * 1) STATUTES — IN DEROGATION OF COMMON LAW — CONSTRUCTION & OPERATION. — Statutes in derogation of the rules of common law are strictly construed.
 * 2) DESCENT & DISTRIBUTION — STATUTORY PROVISIONS — OPERATION & EFFECT. — The fact there was no express statutory limitation in the statute governing descent and distribution did not mean it was the legislature's intention to abrogate the common law maxim that no sane person should be permitted to profit or acquire property by his own wrong or criminal act.
 * 3) DESCENT & DISTRIBUTION — KILLING OF DECEDENT BY HEIR — EFFECT OF CHANCELLOR'S FINDING. — Upon chancellor's finding that appellant's brother had murdered his parents, and by these acts precluded himself from sharing in either of his victim's estate, title to all lands in question vested in appellant who was the only other heir in being at the time of the double murder.

Appeal from Van Buren Chancery Court, Ernie E. Wright, Chancellor; reversed and remanded.

N. J. Henley, for appellant.

Robert Compton, for appellees. 

FRANK HOLT, Justice. The issue in this case is whether one who murders his parent can inherit from the estate of his victim, and, further, the legal effect upon the right of the slayer's heirs to inherit. Appellant's brother, Leslie A. Wright, was convicted in 1954 of first degree murder in the killing of his mother and sentenced to life imprisonment. Upon being paroled in 1964 he married appellee, Lynda Davis Wright, and he was killed in an automobile accident before the birth of his son, Glenn Madison Wright, the other appellee.

The appellant subsequently instituted this action to quiet title to all of the lands owned by his father and mother when they were murdered in 1953 by appellant's seventeen-year-old brother, Leslie. The two brothers were the only surviving descendants.