An Oregon woman died homeless last year while $884,000 in inheritance money sat unclaimed in a state bank account, a news report said.
Cathy Boone died in January 2020 in a warming shelter after living on the streets of the city of Astoria, contending with drug and mental health issues, KGW, the NBC affiliated TV station in Portland reported.
“It just didn’t make any sense to me,” her dad Jack Spithall said in a TV interview.
“That money just sitting there – and she needed help in the worst way.”
Boone grew up in the Portland area and later moved to Astoria, where her mother lived after her parents had separated. When Boone’s mother died in 2016, representatives of the estate tried to locate the daughter to no avail.
Newspaper ads went unanswered and a private investigator couldn’t locate her – so her unclaimed money was transferred to the Department of State Lands, KGW stated. In total, she was owed $884,407, according to the report.
“Given a year and a half of effort taken by the personal representative and the attorney for this particular estate, there really isn’t much more that the state could do,” Claudia Ciobanu, a spokesperson for the department, said.
“This is a unique case and we sympathize with the family.”
What happens to Boone’s money now is unknown, with her two biological children and others potentially having claims to her cash, the station said.
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