[WSBAPT] Slayer statute application to inheritance from third party?

[Sara Longley]

Hello listmates,

I have searched the case law and I am scratching my head and hoping someone can help me out.  I have a probate where the decedent's intestate estate would pass in equal shares to her two siblings.  However, one of the siblings was murdered several years earlier by her son, the decedent's nephew.  Under the intestacy statute the nephew would take his mother's share, but my reading of the Slayer Statute (RCW 11.84) is that the nephew is barred from inheriting because of the prohibition on his profiting from his crime.

The statute focuses on a slayer or abuser inheriting directly from the decedent they killed or abused, and all the case law I have found is based on such facts.  Is a slayer also barred from inheriting from a third party by reason of his crime?  That is my interpretation of RCW 11.84.030, but I would appreciate any advice or input the group can offer.

Thanks in advance,
Sara Longley


Sara D. Longley
Senior Attorney
Ivy Law Group, PLLC
1734 NW Market Street
Seattle, WA 98107
Phone: (206) 706-2909
sara at ivylawgroup.com<mailto:sara at ivylawgroup.com>
Pronouns: she, her, hers

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