Cline Siblings Choose Items From Estate

Both stories by Stephanie M. Mangino
The Winchester Star

JULY 24, 2004

It looks like a three-year estate battle between Patsy Cline’s brother and sister is finally winding down.

In May, Winchester Circuit Court Judge John E. Wetsel Jr. made it clear that Cline’s siblings — Sylvia M. Wilt and Samuel L. Hensley — needed to split the remains of their mother’s estate, which includes a slew of Cline items.

That division occurred June 8, but neither side had taken their selections home because they refused to sign a release from estate administrator Charles R. Alton.

Wetsel clarified the legal language in the release documents Thursday, and said if Wilt and Hensley do not sign by Aug. 2, the items they would have received would be sold.

Wetsel then called for the case to return to court on Aug. 19. He advised Alton to bring a draft accounting of the estate, including a plan for the distribution of money.

“I think we’re progressing,” Wetsel said on Thursday, as he presided over a hearing dealing with the distribution of items in the estate of Cline’s mother, Hilda V. Hensley.

Hensley died in December 1998, 35 years after her daughter perished in a March 5, 1963, airplane crash. Cline’s voice propelled a host of top pop and country music hits, including “Crazy” and “Walkin’ After Midnight.”

Cline was raised primarily in Winchester, and her mother died here.

Cline’s brother and sister have been in court battling over their mother’s estate since 2001.

A November 2003 court-ordered sale of Cline items at Christie’s auction house in New York grossed more than $120,000.

If the documents are available for review well before Aug. 19, the estate could be wrapped up that day, according to Wilt’s attorney, Philip S. Griffin II.

When the estate wrangling ends, so will a lawsuit filed by Hensley against his sister.

The suit contends Wilt mishandled and intentionally destroyed Cline items in her mother’s estate. A 2002 Winchester Circuit Court jury did not agree.

The 2002 trial did not cover all the items listed in Hensley’s suit. However, Hensley’s attorney, Stephen L. Pettler Jr., assured the court, “We’re intending to drop the suit as soon as the [estate] distribution is made.”

AUGUST 20, 2004

A long-term court battle between Patsy Cline’s brother and sister came close to reaching its end Thursday in Winchester Circuit Court.

Only the final accounting and bill-paying remain in the settlement of the estate left when Cline’s mother, Hilda V. Hensley, died on Dec. 10, 1998.

Cline, the voice behind pop-country hits like “Sweet Dreams,” and “Crazy,” died in a 1963 Tennessee airplane crash at age 30. She was raised in Winchester and started her singing career here.

In a brief hearing, Judge John E. Wetsel Jr. dispatched with the few matters that remained after more than five years of legal wrangling between siblings Sylvia M. Wilt and Samuel L. Hensley.

Wetsel told estate administrator Charles R. Alton to partially distribute the cash within the estate, with Wilt and Hensley each receiving $20,000.

He also dismissed a 2002 civil suit Hensley filed against his sister, claiming she had taken items improperly from the estate. Attorneys have 21 days to appeal that decision.

Wilt said Thursday that all the litigation has left her bitter. She said she probably will have to sell her Shenandoah County home to pay legal fees.

“I’m pretty well strapped,” Wilt said. However, she has no plans to part with items that belonged to her mother or Cline, who died when Wilt was 19.

The parties in the estate settlement are scheduled to meet again Sept. 23 to talk about the final accounting of estate assets and expenses.