Insurance company wants guarantee murderer can never claim his ...

?I?m horrified that there is even a remote possibility that he could benefit.?

?On Christmas Eve a decade ago, Ernest R. Wholaver Jr. murdered his family.

With gunshots to the head, he killed his wife, Jean, and daughters Victoria and Elizabeth.

Only Victoria?s infant daughter, Madison, survived the bloodbath in the Wholavers? Middletown home.

Now, with Ernest Wholaver in state prison under a death sentence and his brother, Scott, in jail as an accomplice to the slayings, at least one legal loose end remains.

State Farm Life Insurance Co., which holds Jean Wholaver?s $25,000 life insurance policy, is asking Dauphin County Court to issue a ruling that will guarantee that neither Ernest nor Scott Wholaver ever get a penny of that payout.

Neither man has surrendered his claim on Jean Wholaver?s insurance, court filings show.

Ernest Wholaver, insisting that he is innocent of the murders, has filed documents indicating he intends to fight State Farm?s court complaint.

Dauphin County District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr. called it ?ludicrous? that Ernest Wholaver would have even the slightest chance of getting any of that insurance money.

?I?m horrified that there is even a remote possibility that he could benefit,? Marsico said. He said he hopes ?the wheels of justice will turn quickly enough? that Wholaver is executed, rendering the insurance dispute moot.

Michael Wagman, State Farm?s attorney, said he couldn?t comment on the case beyond the court filings.

In its civil complaint, State Farm is arguing that Ernest and Scott Wholaver are excluded by law from being beneficiaries of Jean Wholaver?s life insurance.

Pennsylvania?s ?Slayer Statute? forbids convicted murderers from profiting in that way from the deaths of their victims, the insurer contends.

According to court filings, Jean Wholaver took out her policy in August 1998, naming her husband as the primary beneficiary.

Her daughters were listed as successor beneficiaries, meaning they would receive the insurance money if Ernest Wholaver wasn?t alive to collect. Last in line among the potential beneficiaries was Scott Wholaver.

That sequence was horribly disrupted by the 2002 slayings.

Police said Ernest Wholaver crept into the North Union Street home that Christmas Eve, murdered his then-estranged wife, then killed 20-year-old Victoria and 15-year-old Elizabeth with the same .22-caliber pistol.

The slayings occurred less than a month before Ernest Wholaver was to be tried on charges that he had been sexually abusing his daughters.

Ernest Wholaver, now 52, was convicted on three first-degree murder charges in 2004 and is in the state prison in Greene County, awaiting execution.

Scott Wholaver, now 38, is in the state prison at Laurel Highlands. He was sentenced to 12? to 25 years behind bars on a third-degree murder plea after admitting that he drove his brother to the scene of the killings.

The court case over who should receive the proceeds of Jean Wholaver?s life insurance has been going on for some time.

One of the latest legal developments came this month when Ernest Wholaver asked the court for more time so he can file a motion to have State Farm?s complaint dismissed.

He also asked the court to appoint a lawyer to represent him, claiming his efforts to recruit his own attorney have failed. Judge Lawrence F. Clark Jr. rejected Ernest Wholaver?s plea for a lawyer in a Nov. 13 order.

In seeking a time extension, Wholaver complained that he needed legal help ?due to his current incarceration and status as a capital case prisoner and his lack of knowledge in law.?

He said he is allowed only limited movement in prison, and has just two hours in the prison?s law library every few weeks.

In an earlier filing peppered with misspellings, Wholaver noted that he is appealing his murder convictions. ?My appeals process are far from over,? he wrote. ?I do believe it will show my innocents in this case.

?There should be know problem for [State Farm] to hold on to this policy for a few more years, until my appeal process are complete,? he wrote.

State Farm, meanwhile, is urging the court to order that the insurance policy proceeds be paid to Jean Wholaver?s estate.

By law, her only survivor aside from her husband is her granddaughter Madison, who is 10 and lives with her father, Frank Ramos, in Berks County, the insurer said.

Ramos is also executor of Jean Wholaver?s estate, court records show.

State Farm is requesting permission to pay the $25,000 to the county prothonotary ?for ultimate distribution as the court may decide.?

Five years ago, Ernest Wholaver was involved in another court fight that pitted him against the interests of his granddaughter.

That battle involved control of the home where the murders occurred. Frank Ramos tried to save the house from foreclosure on his daughter?s behalf, but Wholaver challenged the move in court.

Ultimately, the house went into foreclosure and was sold for $131,601 at a sheriff?s sale in April 2008.

Source: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/11/ernest_wholaver.html

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