MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - Court records indicate that a Republican candidate for the state Senate once tore up a dying widow's last will and testament while she was unconscious.
The candidate, John Stevens of Huntingdon, is running for the open Senate District 24 seat in northwestern Tennessee.
The Commercial Appeal reported legal proceedings show Stevens in 2009 visited Ruth Keras' hospital room and told a nurse he was her attorney.
He said the woman, who had named St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Youth Town of Tennessee as major beneficiaries, had requested in an earlier meeting that he destroy her will.
The nurse took a video of Stevens tearing up the will with a mobile phone at his request. Keras died the next day.
Stevens did not comment for the newspaper's story.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
