The following statement was written on August 13, 2002, by Kyle's husband, Jerry.
August 13, 2002
RE: The Guardianship of Martha E. Ham
Jasper County Superior Court
Rensselaer, IN 47978
THIS STATEMENT IS BEING MADE ON BEHALF OF KYLE SHAYNA HAMILTON BY HER HUSBAND, JERRY ORLEMANN:
Background
I met Kyle Shayna Hamilton at CBS Radford Studios in April of 1983. We became friends by working together on a number of technical projects and in workshops (Film Industry Workshops, Inc.). We were never particularly close friends, but we were friends, nevertheless. She didn’t have a whole lot of really close friends at the time. Quite a few people thought she was a little weird. They said things such as “You don’t have a sense of humor” and “You think too much.” They thought she was a little weird and said the things they did because they did not really know Kyle. But over the next 13 years, I got to know Kyle very well.
Kyle left the workshops sometime in early 1987. We didn’t see a whole lot of each other over the next few years, but we remained in contact and we remained friends.
In 1994, Kyle returned to the workshops where I was then on staff. She had been through a very bad breakup of a relationship which resulted in having her ex-boyfriend stalking her. She had also been in a terrible automobile accident when she was stopped at a red light and a drunk driver hit her head on at high speed. The impact totaled her Aerostar, shattered her sternum, caused her to bite off her tongue, and drove her hard enough into the roof of the van that she left the metal roof noticeably dented. She returned to the workshops to regain her craft as an actor and singer. She had to relearn how to breathe with her shattered sternum, she had to relearn how to speak with her repaired tongue, she had to relearn how to memorize things because her short term memory was affected by the accident; breathing, speaking and memorizing being so very essential for an actor and singer. She also had to learn something new: how to cope with the daily migraine headaches that had become a part of her life.
As a Staff Director at the workshops, I worked with Kyle to help her relearn what she had lost. It was during that time that I discovered why some people used to think she was a little weird.
When Kyle spoke, she spoke from her heart, she was direct and to the point, and she spoke the truth. She didn’t leave things out; she didn’t sugarcoat her words. She spoke with complete honesty and assumed that everyone else did also, so she took to heart whatever anybody had to say. Hence, she thought too much and she had no sense of humor. She also had a higher sense of morality than anyone I have ever met, before or since. Hence, she was weird.
I learned, it took me almost 13 years, but I learned that Kyle has a keen sense of humor, that she thinks very seriously about nearly everything as it relates to life and spirituality, and I learned to admire, even envy a little, her weirdness. I also changed a great deal of my lifestyle during that period of time because of what I learned from her. I am proud to say that she consented to be my wife and we were married on July 7, 1996.
This background information is to provide some insight into Kyle’s character, her inner strengths, her spirituality, her loyalty, her dedication, and her integrity. I believe this information is important because there are a number of people in Rensselaer who think Kyle is a little weird.
My Statement
There is not a whole lot to which I can give testimony. A great many of the events concerning this case occurred in Rensselaer when Kyle was there without me. However, I can tell of what I know and I know from reading Mr. Potter’s preliminary report that he has a great misunderstanding of the facts. I did not take part in the phone conversation between Kyle and Mr. Potter, but I was in the room with Kyle, I heard what she said, and what she said to Mr. Potter is not what he put in his report. He apparently ignored the information that Kyle provided and collected the information he put in his report from other sources which have yet to be identified.
I first visited the home of Martha and Donald Ham in Dolton, Illinois, in December of 1995. Kyle’s father was gravely ill, literally dying from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, at the time. During our visit, Kyle and I spent a great deal of our time cleaning the filthy house, scrubbing the sinks, bathtubs, and commodes, and throwing out perishables that were months past their expiration dates. Once, when Kyle and I were out visiting other friends, Martha dug through the trash to recover the food items we had tossed and we had to put them back in the trash later.
The next trip I made to Dolton was when Kyle’s father died. After getting through the funeral and things began to settle down, Kyle began talking to her mother about the possibility of selling the house and moving out to California to live with us. However, Martha said she wanted her own house. When Kyle suggested that she could have her own place and we’d be close enough to visit frequently, Martha revealed her plan to sell the Dolton house and buy a condo in Rensselaer. Kyle did not think this was a wise decision for two reasons: 1) we had seen the condition of the house as Martha kept it and we believed that it was too much for her to handle, and 2) Kyle was convinced that her mother was on the verge of a major breakdown of some sort. Kyle said she could tell this from the way her mother was acting. When she voiced her concern to her aunt, Jiggs Kobek, Jiggs’ response was that it was nonsense and that Kyle didn’t really know her mother so she could not judge how her mother would react. When we left for the airport Kyle predicted that her mother would probably end up being hospitalized by Christmas. This was in early October.
In early November Martha was admitted to Ingalls Hospital. Kyle flew out to Illinois right after Thanksgiving after being told that her mother was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and would be undergoing chemotherapy. In mid-December I flew out to join Kyle when she called to tell me that she was told her mother had only a short time to live.
On December 24th, we moved Martha to Saint Anthony’s Nursing Home in Crown Point. The multiple myeloma diagnosis was confirmed, however, the doctor maintained that it was in it’s very early stages and there was no immediate threat to Martha’s life. The doctor also told us that the average life expectancy in cases of multiple myeloma was three to six years.
Kyle again argued to sell the home in Dolton and have her mother move to California. She was against the purchase of the condo because of the living conditions seen in the Dolton home and Martha’s declining health. However, Kyle’s Aunt Jiggs sided with Martha on the issue.
We made one more trip to the Dolton home. After Jiggs signed Martha out of Saint Anthony’s, the Dolton house was sold. Kyle and I went to Dolton for the signing because Kyle owned 50% of the house and had to sign off on the sale. Kyle signed the necessary paperwork with the understanding that she would share title on the condo when it was purchased based on her $36,000 which eventually went into the purchase, however, the condo was only titled in Martha’s name. After the sale, Kyle and I had to pack up the entire house, the house they had lived in for 40 years, because Martha had neither the strength nor the energy to pack things herself and her sister, Jiggs, did not have time to come from Rensselaer to help with any packing before moving day. Consequently, Martha had to pay rent to the person to whom she had just sold the house.
My next direct involvement with Martha was during a visit to Rensselaer in the summer of 2000. On that trip, Martha was very excited because she had been waiting for Kyle to visit so she could take Kyle with her shopping. So Martha took us with her to Jackson’s Funeral Home to help her select a casket and headstone. This was part of a prepaid funeral insurance package that Martha paid for with a personal check. While we were sitting and talking with Bill Jackson after all the documents were signed, Bill asked Martha whether or not she had a trust. Martha said she didn’t have a trust and didn’t know what it was. Bill explained to her what the benefits of a trust was and told her that she could list all her beneficiaries in the trust and that it would work out better than just having a will. Martha told Bill that her sole heir was Kyle and asked if a trust was still needed. Bill told her it would be a good idea and he told her he would call Ned Tonner to set things up. He then called Ned, who had some free time at that moment, and we left Jackson’s to go directly to Ned Tonner’s office.
In the meeting with Ned, he began the draft of the trust making Martha trustee and Kyle the successor trustee. However, Kyle suggested that Jiggs be made the successor trustee since she lived there in Rensselaer and already had Martha’s power of attorney. Everybody seemed in agreement and when we left him, he told us that he would mail Kyle a copy of the paperwork in a few weeks.
That evening Kyle and I visited with the Kobeks. During the visit we told them all about the visit to Jackson’s Funeral Home and the visit with Ned Tonner to start drafting a trust. Jiggs was quiet for a moment and then told us that Ned was a good attorney and he had done a good job when he had drawn up their trust. The following day we left to return to California.
One afternoon in August Kyle stormed into my home office obviously quite upset. She told me that she had just spoken with Ned Tonner on the phone to check on the status of the trust since she had not received any copies. Kyle told me that Ned informed her that on the day after we left Jiggs had come to his office and, using her power of attorney, canceled the trust and instructed him to start guardianship proceedings instead. I cannot verify what was actually said on the telephone. I can only repeat what Kyle told me and that she was extremely angry and she immediately booked a flight to Midway.
I also cannot verify what happened after Kyle got to Rensselaer. I only know what she told me in our phone conversations, but I can attest that what she told me coincides with the rebuttal to Mr. Potter’s report that she sent to Mike Riley.
I know that when she returned from Rensselaer she had a trust with her that named her as successor trustee and power of attorney for Martha regarding finances and health care decisions. I know that her Aunt Jiggs was extremely angry with Kyle over what had taken place. I was on the phone with Kyle during those conversations.
Martha came to visit us at Thanksgiving. We began noticing some things about her that were not right. The major concern was her incontinence. She was continually smelling of urine and she was getting the bed wet with urine and she was leaving wet spots wherever she sat. Kyle kept trying to tell her what was happening, but Martha refused to believe it. She could not feel the wetness, she could not smell the urine, and she could not feel it when she urinated. After quite a struggle, Kyle finally convinced Martha that she had a problem and Kyle taught her how to use Depends.
After Martha left to return to Rensselaer, Kyle called Jiggs on the phone and told her about the incontinence problem. Jiggs indicated that she was aware of it but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Kyle asked Jiggs to please see that her mother got another supply of Depends before she ran out of the ones we had sent with her.
Around Christmas we spoke with Martha and she told us that Jiggs was very upset with her, but she wouldn’t say why. We called Jiggs and she told us that she and Joe, her husband, had taken Martha with them to a party and that when leaving, Martha had apparently picked up the wrong coat from the coat check. Jiggs said when told that she had the wrong coat, Martha kept insisting that it was her coat. Jiggs was extremely upset and told us that Martha had ruined the coat because she had been wet. She told us that Martha was a big embarrassment and that she was embarrassed to take her anywhere. She didn’t seem to be upset that Martha had a problem.
Then came the call that we had been half expecting. The beauty shop where Martha usually got her hair done called Kyle to tell her that Martha had driven to the shop, against their advice, during a blizzard, and left the car in gear with the keys in the ignition, parked up against their front wall. Kyle phoned Ned Tonner for assistance in getting her mother safely home and the car taken care of. When Kyle spoke to the police about the incident she was told that on top of everything else, Martha was driving on an expired license. So Kyle made plans to go back to Rensselaer to take care of matters there.
Before leaving, Kyle and I talked. We agreed that the best solution was to bring her mother out to California to live with us, or at least in an apartment very close by, because it was obvious that she had gotten to the point where she could no longer live at home alone and it was Kyle’s responsibility to make sure that her mother was well cared for. However, when speaking with Ned Tonner on the phone, we were informed that Kyle needed to go to court and have her mother declared incompetent and that she would have to agree to allowing her mother to stay in her own home with a personal care assistant to help her out or else the court would appoint somebody else as guardian.
I cannot verify what happened after Kyle got to Rensselaer. I only know what she told me in our phone conversations, but I can attest that what she told me coincides with the rebuttal to Mr. Potter’s report that she sent to Mike Riley. However, one of the things she told me was that Ned wanted her to use a client of his to handle the investments for the trust. She asked me for my advice because I am a licensed Financial Consultant. Using the figures I was given for the values of the current investments in the trust, I calculated that the commissions on reinvesting those monies would be at least $10,000. Considering that these were in a number of certificates of deposit with differing maturity dates, the commissions could have been jacked up to at least $30,000 over the course of the first year. The smaller figure I had come up with was based on discounted rates that would apply if all of the liquid assets of the trust were invested at one time in, as an example, a single mutual fund family. I suggested that it would be more beneficial to the trust to let me invest the money because I would be able to invest it without taking any kind of commission. Kyle then told me that Ned had informed her that it would look suspicious if she had me handling the investments.
I can also state that I advised Kyle to use a 1099 rather than W2 when hiring Tonjua Gray because that would be financially more beneficial for the trust when filing taxes. In addition, I can also state that when problems arose concerning bonding for the guardianship, I pointed out to Kyle over the phone that in the writing of the trust it states that she does not have to post a bond. I also told her that her power of attorney was written with specific clauses that made it irrevocable in the event that Martha was determined to be mentally incompetent. I never understood the need for a guardianship hearing. I thought it was just going to be a competency hearing.
After Kyle returned from Rensselaer, we talked about plans for our house. Because we both work out of the home we had been planning on converting the largest bedroom area into an office and then remodel the other two bedrooms and shared bath into one large master bedroom. We decided that would not be a good plan because we were going to move Martha to California in November when she came to visit for Thanksgiving. So at that time we began making plans and remodeling the largest bedroom into a suite unit that was handicapped accessible and had a separate entrance so that Martha could live in that space. The separate entrance would be there for when the time came to hire somebody to come in and help us in caring for Martha. We also decided to do some additional landscaping to the backyard area to make it into a more pleasant area for Martha to sit in, walk around, relax, and get fresh air since that was something Martha loved.
It was after the landscaping was finished that the landscape developer began talking to us about shooting pictures and submitting them to magazines. We’d have to wait for the garden to fill in, but he had gotten displays published before and he would like the publicity and we could get as much as $10,000 for a magazine spread. He also talked about using the photos for a website that he wanted built and we agreed for me to build his website. In thinking about the pictures for the website, and Kyle being a photographer, we thought about being able to use the area for occasional photo shoots. In fact, we did just that during the fall for a candidate running for public office. It was also during this time that Kyle’s cousin’s boyfriend visited and suggested that it would be ideal for location shooting. He works as a casting director and frequently needs to scout locations for commercial shoots.
As Thanksgiving approached we began planning for Martha’s visit. Kyle informed Tonjua that she was going to keep her mother in California when she came out for Thanksgiving. Then one afternoon, Kyle came into the office and told me she had just gotten off the phone with Tonjua and that Tonjua and told her that both Jiggs and Joe were very sick and would not be going to Florida this year, which they usually did every November. Based on that information, Kyle spoke with her mother and suggested coming out for Christmas this year instead of Thanksgiving and that way she could spend some holiday time with Jiggs and Joe.
After Thanksgiving we were led to believe that Jiggs and Joe were both nearing death; that Joe had cancer and Jiggs was having severe heart problems. So we delayed bringing Martha out here once again. We later learned that we had been slightly mislead as to the health of both Jiggs and Joe.
There is not much more that I can say since it would be things that Kyle told me and those things are contained in the rebuttal to Mr. Potter. However, I can state that I have personally seen just about all of the paperwork and documents that are referred to in that rebuttal to Mr. Potter and I can verify that the rebuttal is correct in it’s references to things like bank accounts that were in both Martha’s and Kyle’s names, investments that were in both Martha’s and Kyle’s names, the Dolton house which was titled in both Martha’s and Kyle’s names, documents from the U.S. mail that had to have been illegally opened and photocopied, documents that predate the timeframe that Tonjua claims she began collecting “evidence” due to Kyle’s alleged neglect of Martha’s medical needs, copies of 1099’s that Kyle never received the original of, including one photocopied 1099 with a note attached questioning whether or not it should be forwarded to Kyle.
One thing that I can mention is that all of this has practically ruined our lives. The stress is causing medical problems of our own. We had been putting together a production of Mary Chase’s play “ Harvey” for over a year. I was to direct. Kyle was to play the female lead, Veta Louise Simmons. During casting, three actors auditioned for parts because they wanted the opportunity to work with Kyle. Two of them were cast in the show. I’ve worked with Kyle in the past and I know her capabilities. She recently appeared in a stage performance of the play “Bad Seed” and had everybody raving about her. I’ve directed her in “The Haunting of Hill House” and again everybody raved about her performance.
As we went into production for the play, the stress that Kyle was under began to get very apparent. Usually the first one to be off-book, Kyle still didn’t have all of her lines down when we opened. Just before opening night, one of the cast members approached me asking if Kyle could be replaced. The Artistic Director of the theater called to ask me if I thought Kyle would be able to go on opening night. On the morning of our opening, the President of the theater group, Palos Verdes Players, called me and asked me to delay the opening of the show for another week. Kyle never really hit her stride until half way through the run. Her best performances were on the final two weekends of the run and they were not up to her potential, although she still got a standing ovation on one of them. The two cast members who specifically auditioned because they wanted the opportunity to work with Kyle now refuse to ever work with her again. At this moment in time, I don’t know whether or not Kyle will ever be able to regain her reputation. I don’t know that she’ll be given the chance.
All of this, all for nothing, all for a case that the court should never have even accepted. All for a case where an attorney who was involved in the court case when Martha was declared mentally incompetent, put some papers in front of her and told her to sign them, knowing full well that she had no idea what they were, that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and multiple myeloma.
More important is the waste of it all. In January of this year, Martha knew who her daughter was and knew her name. Now she knows that it is her daughter when she sees Kyle, but she can’t remember Kyle’s name. When I speak with her on the phone all she talks about is how lonely she is, that the food is really good, that she’d like to go outside, that she wants to visit Kyle, that she wants to spend more time with Kyle. During the run of “ Harvey” she said she would like to come out and see Kyle in the play. The last time I spoke with Martha, she didn’t remember that there ever was a play. She didn’t know who I was until Kyle told her and even then I don’t think it registered.
This is probably the most precious time that Kyle and Martha will ever have in their lives. They have been robbed of seven months of that time. Time that can never be recouped. Time for which there really is no recompense. Such criminal actions should never happen in U.S. courts. Such criminal actions only happen in the courts of corrupt nations.
Sincerely,
Jerry Orlemann