Peter Lance, an author and journalist whose meticulously researched book, "Homicide at Rough Point," investigated the killing and recently interviewed Walker, who was 13 years old in 1966. 2023 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This is consistent with the blood found under the car. The Duke family contributed a great amount to public programs, and Duke later managed the donations. In 1964, she opened them to the public. When Cromwell ran for public office, Duke tried to campaign for him, but the press was more interested in her. To everyone's astonishment and displeasure, Lafferty was named trustee of the Foundation. William Bateman Leeds, Sr., known as the 'Tinplate King', rented the home in 1904 and 1905. On an 11-month round-the-world honeymoon, the new Mrs. Cromwell was frustrated by her husband's preference for the upper deck over their stateroom. What does he have to say about the future? It was a man and a woman, he said in an interview with The Chronicle. The death of Arden further weakened her marriage. She gave $25,000 to restore the Cliff Walk, a pedestrian walking path around her home, and $10,000 to the Newport Hospital. The local police stuck to that narrative: their report described Tirellas death as an unfortunate accident. For decades, this official narrative remained untouched, despite rumors of murder. This matter is being taken care of by Chief Radice. Getty Images Doris and Barbara (who were friendly as teenagers) lived in separate gilded cages, with teams of bodyguards, servants, nannies, private railroad cars,. REAL ESTATE SCION ROBERT DURST EXPECTED TO TESTIFY IN OWN DEFENSE AT MURDER TRIAL. When he donated $40 million to Trinity College in North Carolina, his native state, the institution changed its name to Duke University. Headquartered in New York and governed by an eight-member Board of Trustees, its mission is "to improve the quality of people's lives through grants supporting the performing arts, wildlife conservation, medical research and the prevention of child maltreatment, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke's properties." She left behind $1.2 billion and many lavish homes, including her Hawaiian showcase, Shangri La, the focus of a new book and exhibit. ." The newspapers especially liked to report about the extravagant and frivolous lifestyles of wealthy young heiresses to readers who were both captivated and repulsed. During this period, Heffner's boyfriend, James Burns, became Duke's bodyguard. At 14, she successfully sued her mother for ownership of the Fifth Avenue mansion. There, she kept large dogs to deter unwelcome visitors. Back in the days of industrial monopolies, James Buchanan Duke, Doris's father, held as powerful a grip on the American tobacco industry as John D. Rockefeller did on its oil fields. Duke died in 1993, aged 80. The company was the largest tobacco trust in the United States until the government forced it to dissolve in 1911. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. She bought an old airplane from a Middle Eastern businessman. The 39-year-old Cromwell, who was rich, but not as rich as Duke, reputedly was a socialite who had a taste for wealthy women. Doris whole ethos was, Clean up after me.. Tirella arrived at Rough Point the night before the crash, telling friends he wanted to break the news of his departure to Duke in person. Newport is this strange kind of a place where everyone is connected to everyone else, he says. When she was 54, her husband sued her for stabbing him in a drunken rage. After divorcing during World War II, Duke traveled first to Egypt to aid the war effort, organizing poker games at Cairo's Egyptian Club for the troops. In three years, Duke and Cromwell would be divorced. A year passed. In closets at her Park Avenue penthouse; in the 105 rooms of Rough Point, her Newport mansion (where Duke entertained friends like Jacqueline Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor and where she housed Princess and Baby, the Bactrian camels given by Adnan Khashoggi); and in attics at her Falcon Lair estate in Beverly Hills, Duke had amassed an extraordinary collection of clothing, some 9,000 articles strong. Then there was the notorious case of Bernard Lafferty, the inebriated, ponytailed butler who kept vigil at her bedside and to whom she left millions. (Her father was fanatic about germs.) Duke's friends, family, and acquaintances viewed this as a very disturbing development. According to Lance, Newton was ordered by Joseph Radice, the chief at the time, to stick to Dukes account of the incident. On Oct. 7, 1966, billionaire tobacco heiress Doris Duke was driving away from her mansion in Newport, R.I., when she crushed her longtime employee Eduardo Tirella with a two-ton station wagon. In 1945, she began a short-lived writing career when she became a foreign correspondent for the International News Service, reporting from different cities across the war-ravaged Europe. He had been getting more work in Hollywood films and was determined to leave Duke behind and move to the West Coast. However, later on, a print copy of the photo was found by Jane McGuire, who was related to a Daily News photographer who had been at the scene moments after the crash. Duke was later taken to the hospital, where she spent the night, sheltered from police by her doctor. Duke would mourn the loss the rest of her life. Her plan to build Shangri La during the Great Depression made her only more famous. Now shes sitting there contemplating, Lance says. The car ended up careening across the street where it struck a fence and tree. Duke was the only child of James Buchanan Duke, the founder of the American Tobacco Company. Doris tightfisted ways were legendary. When she was born, the newspapers christened her "the. James Duke doted on his daughter, and Doris Duke led a fairy-tale existence in her early life. Williams died in custody last week after Raleigh police officers tased him. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. Walker said he mounted his bike and hurried away from the scene. "Doris Duke," Biography.com,http://www.biography.com/search/article.jsp?aid=9542083&search= (January 8, 2003). Bill Duke has enjoyed a long and unique career as both an actor and director in theater, television, and film. The police chief later bought two Florida condos. Instead, Nanaline took Doris on a grand tour of Europe. But Walker said his father made him swear to never tell anyone what he had seen. Doris Duke (November 22, 1912 - October 28, 1993) was an American billionaire tobacco heiress, philanthropist, art collector, horticulturalist, and socialite. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. While Duke was quite a philanthropist, she wasn't just giving money to the filthy rich Marcos. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Duke amended her will to authorize her executors to recover all of the loans to Marcos once things settled down in the Philippines. 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton She was also known to be paranoid. Those who knew Duke believed her death came as a result of overmedication. In addition to her artistic pursuits, she developed a passion for restoration. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. Duke inherited her money from her father, James Duke, president of the American Tobacco Co. and co-founder of the company known today as Duke Energy. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The position of the blood under the car suggests that Tirella was crushed not against the front of the car but underneath it. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. On September 1, 1947, while in Paris, Duke became the third wife of Porfirio Rubirosa, a . "And the next thing I heard was the roar of a motor, the crash, the screaming of a man, ever so slight skidding sound and deacceleration of the motor, a pause in the screaming, a man beginning to scream again, the roar of the motor again, the mans scream turning to horror of Nooooooo!" and then another crash, he said. Hear poetry from NC's poet laureate. Duke was drawn to Indian pieces, returning from her travels with strands of emeralds cut en cabochon. A paean to Islamic art and architecture, Shangri La is the subject of a new book and an exhibit opening at New York's Museum of Arts and Design this fall. Signup for our weekly newsletter. Unlike the rest of the country, Duke was unaffected by the deprivations of the Great Depression. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps. An investigation into the incident was dropped a week later. But he died when she was 12. In her 70s she adopted a 35-year-old belly dancer and Hare Krishna Chandi Heffner, but then disinherited her. Duke's net worth has been estimated to have been around $1.2 billion. Apparently the rumors about Rubirosa's skills as a lover were true, but other members of Duke's circle were worried about other rumors surrounding the handsome Italian. She was discomforted however, by the news coverage that families like hers' received. As he continued up the road, Walker heard the screams of a man and the sounds of a car crashing twice. Discuss North Carolina politics. Tirella had worked as a designer for Duke for several years. Duke University in North Carolina is named for her family. In 1940, she gave birth prematurely to her only child, a daughter named Arden, who died the next day. Tirellas family sued her in civil court in 1971 and Duke was found negligent. Each of Tirellas eight siblings received just $5,620 after legal fees. And his recollection of events matched a police investigator who concluded that Duke struck Tirella once, sending him onto the hood of the car, then when he fell off, accelerated again and ran him over. "What it means, effectively, is that Doris Duke, who died in 1993 at the age of 80, still . He theorized that Tirella jumped on the hood in order to save himself. His Wife Helped Free Him. By the time Doris Duke was born, her father had amassed a fortune of nearly $80 million, and newspapers called her "the richest little girl in the world" and "million dollar baby.". "The Newport Police Department would like to look further into this (due to the new information weve been given), and rectify any possible misinformation concluded in the past, if any, for Eduardo and his family," Detective Jacque Wuest, who has been assigned to reopen the case, said in an email Thursday. Through innovative marketing and production tech, duke. Art became one of her passions and, throughout her travels, she collected treasures from all parts of the world. As Duke's health grew worse in her later years, Lafferty would prevent visitors from seeing her. This photograph, which was on the front page of the Newport Daily News the day after Tirellas death, shows blood on the underside of the car, underneath the rear axle. There was time for a brief affair with General George S. Patton on the Russian front before she moved to Paris to work for Bazaar. She died at 80 in her Beverly Hills mansion on Oct. 28, 1993, leaving an . Officers were attempting to arrest Williams for drug possession but he resisted, according to the city's report. The knee surgery was unsuccessful. Duke was cremated within 24 hours and her ashes scattered into the Pacific Ocean. After leaving the employ of the Duke family, Doris Duke establishes a trust for the benefit of Jenny Renaud, which stays in place until her death in 1958. She said Tirella was driving but had gotten out of the car to open the estates massive wrought-iron gates, so she got behind the steering wheel to drive through the gates. Horst P. Horst This is consistent with marking on the gates that suggest someone was forced up on the hood of the car. But her marriage was a sham, and Duke spent the late 1930s living unapologetically with Duke Kahanamoku at Shangri La while conducting simultaneous affairs with Errol Flynn in L.A. and an aristocratic MP in London. The older man warned his son that Duke was a rotten person who had some people on her payroll who were very unscrupulous.. Doris Duke: The Richest Girl in the World, The Unknown Librarian Who Saved Queer History. A wealthy businessman and philanthropist, James Duke contributed his name and money to various institutions. An informational card at the house detailing the events of October 7, 1966, states that many rumors and half-truths surround this tragedy.. Duke University bears the family's name. But Duke was allegedly furious at Tirella for telling her that he was leaving her to become a set designer in Hollywood. In 1989, Duke formalized the odd relationship by legally adopting the 35-year-old Heffner. In her will, she left the majority of her estate to the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Among them were writer Louis Bromfield, British Parliament member Alec Cunningham-Reid, actor Errol Flynn, United States Army General George Patton, and surfing champion Duke Kahanamoku. At the time she died, Duke's estate was worth over one billion dollars. When I was a cub reporter, the town was buzzing with this rumor.. Duke claimed her foot accidentally slipped to the accelerator. As a young girl, Doris was physically awkward and emotionally shy. This would strain their marriage. She died in 1993 aged 80 having quadrupled her enormous fortune to over $1 billion, naming her butler as executor. Lance is especially incensed that The Newport Restoration Foundation, which controls the house, has said its confident in the polices conclusion that Tirellas death was an accident. For years, rumors would circulate about the Duke family and, later, especially about Doris. Share and discuss Homicide at Rough Point: Doris Dukes killing of longtime employee reinvestigated after half a century on social media. By the end of 2002, DDCF had approved 363 grants totaling more than $335 million to nonprofit organizations throughout the United States. April 7, 1993 Chandi Duke Heffner, the 39-year-old former belly dancer and Hare Krishna devotee who was legally adopted by American Tobacco Co. heiress Doris Duke in 1988, now claims the. This story has been shared 108,202 times. Duke claimed that the car crushed Tirella against the gate, but Tirellas autopsy report shows no damage to his lower body, which Lance says would have been present had the victim been pinned against it. 91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount But new evidence now challenges that account. . However, the date of retrieval is often important. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Kindle $9.99 Rate this book Too Rich: The Family Secrets of Doris Duke Jason Thomas, Pony Duke 3.89 596 ratings35 reviews Too Rich: The Family Secrets of Doris Duke offers a fascinating and honest inside portrait of a woman whose life and death are shrouded in mystery. But by 1966, hed had enough. But the economic climate did instill in her a sense of philanthropic purpose. Durin, Duke University: Distance Learning Programs In-Depth, Duke University: Distance Learning Programs, Duke, Doug(las) (originally, Ovidio Fernandez), Duke, Patty 1946- (Patty Duke Astin, Anna Duke-Pearce, Anna Pearce), Duke, Vernon (originally, Dukelsky, Vladimir), https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/duke-doris. It was speculated that this was an appeasement for something that had happened in that town two years before. Duke's family had made its fortune in tobacco in North Carolina. Get the hell out of here! she screamed at him three times, Walker said. They were on their way to view a piece of art Duke had been eyeing for a long time. Courtesy of Donna Lohmeyer. Sometime in the '80s, a renowned art scholar visited the house and informed his hostess that the contents alone might be worth more than $1 billion. On the day of the incident, 13-year-old Walker was biking to Rough Point to deliver a newspaper when he heard two people arguing. Duke was involved in philanthropy, contributing vast amounts of money to AIDS research, medicine, education and child welfare. All rights reserved. When she was a child, Duke's chauffer also served as her bodyguard and was with her all of the time, because her very protective father had an obsessive fear that she would be kidnapped. His ex-wife was Delphine Dodge, heiress to an automobile fortune. Duke was fascinated by his reputation as a great lover. She released the parking brake and the car accidentally leaped forward, pinning Tirella at the iron gates and crushing him to death. On the last day of Eduardo Tirellas life, he arrived at the Rough Point estate to tell Duke that he planned to leave his job as her art curator to pursue his budding Hollywood career, according to Lance. The relationship soured and Duke disowned her, but after Duke's death Heffner settled with the estate for $65 million. Born November 22, 1912, in New York City, Doris Duke was the only child of American tobacco baron James Duke and his wife Nanaline. The exact details of the story vary. According to stories, Duke and Tirella were lovers, and Tirella had planned on leaving her. Duke's fortune came from her father, a tobacco magnate named James Buchanan Duke who tragically passed when she was just 12 years old. For three years, Duke doted on her "daughter." They hopped into the Dodge station wagon, with Tirella behind the wheel and Duke in the passenger seat. She gave $25,000 to restore the Cliff Walk, a scenic seaside trail winding past the towns mansions (despite the fact that shed been embroiled in legal battles with the town trying to fence it off on her property). Thats what happened, according to Dukes account of the incident. Duke's will specifically instructed that her former adopted daughter should not receive any inheritance: "I am extremely troubled by the realization that Chandi Heffner may use my 1988 adoption of her (when she was 35 years old) to attempt to benefit financially under the terms of trusts created by my father. Doris Duke became the richest girl in the world -- and gossip column fodder -- at 12. But when he read Lances Homicide at Rough Point, he realized Newtons account of events matched what he had heard that evening biking up to Rough Point: there had been two crashes. They later ran across each other in Russia when Duke was traveling as a correspondent for Hearst, and they became lovers. At the time she died, Duke's estate was worth over one billion dollars. After suing Duke's estate three times following Duke's 1993 death, however, Heffner received a $65 million settlement. She had good business sense and, during her lifetime, Duke quadrupled her father's fortune. Read about the dramatic life of heiress and onetime BAZAAR contributor. In 1985, she met Chandi Heffner, a 32-year-old Hari Krishna devotee. She Adopted a 35-Year-Old Woman When Duke was 27 years old, she delivered a premature baby daughter who died just 24 hours after being born. For when Duke announced her plans to marry Rubirosa, Snow, aware of his reputation as a fortune hunter, raced to help secure a prenup. Nanaline was a shrewd businesswoman, often compared to Hetty Green, and when she died in 1962, she left her daughter, then estimated to be worth $250 million, a fortune triple what J. When he died, the 12-year-old Doris and her mother, Nanaline Holt Inman, inherited the majority of his estate. Suspicion was cast on Lafferty, as he had previously dismissed and replaced Duke's physicians. Lance said that officers first on the crime scene found blood and skin on the road but not on the gates. Duke went on to live a colorful life full of parties, extramarital affairs and lawsuits. He was killed instantly, and though there were rumors that the pair had been arguing, the incident was ruled an accident. Around 12,000 North Carolinians have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March 2020, leaving countless friends and families forced to adapt to honor their loved ones. The Associated Press is one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering, supplying a steady stream of news to its members, international subscribers and commercial customers. "I would look at the way she caressed her furs and diamonds," she once said about her mother, Nanaline Duke, "and wish she felt the same way about me.". Seven months after the case was closed, Radice retired. When Doris Duke, a fabulously wealthy tobacco and power company heiress, ran over and killed a longtime employee and confidant at her Newport, Rhode Island, mansion in 1966, police took her at her word that it was an accident. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/duke-doris, "Duke, Doris Encyclopedia of World Biography. She told police the car suddenly "leaped forward." After the war, she moved to Paris and continued to work, writing for the magazine Harper's Bazaar. Not a renowned diarist, Doris Duke preferred to reveal herself in the things she purchased. They had an affair that quickly led to a marriage proposal. On Aug. 2, 27 years after Dukes death, the Newport Police Department opened an active investigation into the incident, according to Vanity Fair. Suspicions about Duke's death lingered, but, in 1996, after an 18-month investigation, the Los Angeles district attorney's office concluded there was no credible evidence to suggest that Duke had been murdered. When he came on the scene, he said he saw Duke get out of a car and move her body to block his view. Its time for them not to live in fantasyland, Lance says. Passersby called the authorities, and a nearby patrolman, Edward Angel, arrived on the scene almost immediately. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. It is estimated that she gave away more than $400 million in anonymous contributions throughout her life. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. On the day of the death, the pair were taking the station wagon to look at an artifact, according to Lances book. " It was true. I t was about 5 p.m. on a Friday in October 1966 when the millionaire heiress Doris Dukehounded by gossip columns for decades . They divorced in 1943. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. Updated When Eduardo Tirella told tobacco heiress Doris Duke he was leaving her employ for the West Coast, she ran him down with her car, according to a new book. Duke inherited her money from her father, James Duke, president of the American Tobacco Co. and co-founder of the company known today as Duke Energy. The independent news organization of Duke University. He purchased the 10-acre (40,000 m 2) estate in 1906. When doctors told her that she would not be able to have any more children, Duke was so distraught that she consulted with psychics in an attempt to contact the deceased daughter. She traveled to exotic places and mixed with different cultures. The two women started out as friends, but Duke began lavishing increasingly more extravagant gifts on Heffner, including a 290-acre horse ranch in Hawaii. The day that America's richest woman, Doris Duke, forged a dark, new chapter of her biography. I had visions of you doing your paper route and a truck running over you, and that would be the end of it., In the 1970s, Walker began telling close confidants his account of Dukes murder, which was etched into his brain.. In the fall of 1966, billionaire Doris Duke killed a close confidant in tony Newport, Rhode Island. Shortly before his death in 1996, he agreed to give up the executor position in exchange for $500,000 a year for the rest of his life. Though she never considered it a formal collection, the jewelry is especially impressive. She named them "Baby" and "Princess," and the animals lived at Rough Point, where they were free to eat all the vegetation on the grounds. The local police ruled Tirellas death an unfortunate accident. Duke was found negligent in the death of Eduardo Tirella and escaped the trial without any criminal liability. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. When she was 13, she sued her mother to gain control over the fortune her father left her, and she became involved in over 40 lawsuits throughout her life, according to Lance. These tactics didn't seem to work until Duke was 73. It doesnt get any more baroque and corrupt than that, Lance says. She said she had shifted into the drivers seat in order to drive the car through the gate after Tirella opened it but she inadvertently hit the gas instead of the brake: Suddenly the car leaped forward, and I was on top of him. Duke said Tirella was crushed against the gate then dragged across the road and under the car. The 1966 Dodge station wagon roared across the street in Newport, Rhode Island, smashing through a fence before coming to a stop against a tree, its front almost completely caved in. 61-year-old man sentenced to 14 years in prison for distributing crystal meth for the Gulf Cartel . Angel says that the day after the tragedy, his training officer took him back to the scene of the crash to demonstrate that the evidence suggested a different scenario than what would become the official one.
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