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C.J.: Prince's half-sister left feeling like a pauper
C.J.
Star Tribune

Published Oct 11 2001
Lorna Nelson says her half-brother Prince is standing in the way of their late father's financial promise to her. Lorna claims that about four months before John L. Nelson died on Aug. 25, he showed her a six-figure check made out to him. "He said he wanted me to have it," Lorna told me in an interview Monday. "Prince said [their father] doesn't have a will." Lorna has heard that Prince has two lawyers working on their father's estate. "Why would you need two lawyers if you don't have any money?" She said she has talked to two attorneys about making a legal claim. "I can't find a lawyer to take the case. It's like all the lawyers are afraid of Prince," she said. Lorna Nelson, who describes herself as a writer, lyricist and singer living on Social Security disability payments, is not wealthy. Money from her dad's estate would help her pursue the dream of a career in music, "and I know this is what he wanted me to do," she said. Prince is apparently not interested in helping her or talking to her, having put someone named "Fred" in charge of dealing with family phone calls. A lawyer named Traci Bransford Bullock sent Lorna a document to sign that puts Prince in charge of their father's estate. "I don't have any comment regarding anything regarding Prince's business," Bullock told me Wednesday. Lorna signed it and claims other siblings did too because "we figured we were just going to be arguing with him for the rest of our lives or for quite some time. ... I'm trying to figure out, does this man ever get tired of running over people? How does he sleep?" she said. Having seen the check, Lorna said she believes that her dad had money. "My father had two bank accounts. He worked at Honeywell for 30-32 years. You see, he never spent any money, which is the reason my mother and him couldn't get along. He must have the same dollar he had when he started," she said, laughing. "I'm serious."

Last wishes lost

It is with mixed emotions that Lorna Nelson pursues a claim to John L. Nelson's estate. "He didn't want us fighting," she said. Her father's wish died soon after he did, from what she tells me. "Prince called us a couple days after he died and told us my father had passed away in his sleep. He said, I'll get back to you. "He never did," Lorna said. She said that for a few days she had no idea what funeral home had her dad's body; not until she went to church for the funeral was she accorded a look at her dad. He wasn't dressed as snazzily as he did in life. Prince did not attend the funeral, Lorna said. There was a battle when Prince insisted upon cremation, she said. "We didn't want that. We went round and round." Lorna said Prince wanted her dad's ashes in an urn at Prince's so-called Purple House, where Mr. Nelson lived out his life. Lorna said Mr. Nelson is buried at St. Paul's Oakland Cemetery alongside her mom, Nelson's first wife, Vivian. Vivian and John had four children; Mr. Nelson and Mattie, his second wife, had two kids: Prince and Tyka Nelson. "My father was the leader of this family. We've got to do away with this sadness and madness," she said in reference to her dad's death and the events of Sept. 11.