A contested will and fatal fall on St. Paul’s Linwood Avenue

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
Updated ·13 min read

When Stephen Rocheford remembers James “J.P.” Collins, it’s largely with sadness, disappointment and anger. He thinks back to their final lunch together at the St. Paul University Club on Summit Avenue, and their worrisome conversation before ending his decades-long friendship with the charming, big-hearted theater buff who would collect a dozen versions of the same opera on CD just to find the best rendition.

Rocheford, a magazine publisher and former U.S. Army intelligence officer, asked Collins — whom he had sponsored through Alcoholics Anonymous for more than 30 years — whether he was drinking or using drugs. He received no answer. Rocheford asked if he had signed over his home to his roommate, a man Collins had once described to him as intimidating and prone toward yelling and slamming doors to get his way. Again, he received no answer.

The two men never spoke again. Within four months, Collins was hospitalized, never to recover. Within six months, he was dead.

In his final years, before his fatal fall down a flight of steps on his 81st birthday, Collins kept something of an open-door policy at the large Crocus Hill duplex in St. Paul that had been in his family for a century. Collins, a retired state computer systems technician and one of the first openly gay foster parents in Minnesota, allowed others who had struggled with addiction to rent rooms from him while in transition. And then, with Rocheford’s help, he would treat as many as 93 guests to a Thanksgiving feast at his home.

In the fall of 2015, that included Eugene Francis Kelly, who had met Collins’ adult son in a hospital treatment program, befriended his father and then moved into the Linwood Avenue duplex with Collins, who was 25 years his senior and in declining health.

It wasn’t long before Kelly, an attorney by training who does not maintain an active license to practice law in Minnesota, began introducing himself as Collins’ lawyer, even though he lacked an active license, according to probate documents filed in Ramsey County District Court. And it wasn’t long after that when Kelly began demanding that others around Collins move out of the duplex, even his youngest son.

The probate petitions, filed in September 2019 by Collins’ two adult children, Murphy Collins Cannon and Allen Collins, marked the beginning of a nearly two-year legal fight against Kelly, Kelly’s claims to their father’s estate, and what they described as his overwhelming influence over their father.

The house guest

That legal battle — which roped in Rocheford, longtime president and publisher of Lavender Magazine, the state’s longest-running gay and lesbian publication — only recently concluded, largely in the family’s favor. An evidentiary hearing held in Ramsey County District Court in June 2021 spanned nearly three weeks of testimony.

It has now spilled over into another inquiry against Kelly, this one initiated by an attorney for Collins’ sons and conducted by the state board that investigates complaints against attorneys and recommends to the Minnesota Supreme Court whether they should be disciplined, suspended or disbarred entirely from the practice of law.

A reporter’s call and email to Kelly for comment were not returned.

In emails, according to Collins’ family, Kelly identified himself by the lawyerly title “esquire,” and his emails ended with a legal disclaimer, typical of attorneys, that the information they contained was “privileged and confidential” as if they were official attorney-client documents. Collins’ sons would testify at trial last year that Kelly frequently threatened them and others with legal action to get his way.

In 2016, Collins’ health issues intensified. “I’m having dinner listening to opera,” wrote Collins on Facebook in April of that year from his room at St. Joseph’s Hospital in downtown St. Paul. Other social media posts at the time featured him with Murphy Collins Cannon or his school-aged grandkids.

When Collins, at the age of 77, had triple bypass surgery in 2016, Kelly began transporting him to appointments and acting as his personal attendant, according to his family’s court filings. Collins, according to the legal petitions, began writing Kelly checks for $2,400 on a regular basis. Kelly had no other apparent income.

A certified financial analyst would later determine that in the summer of 2016, Collins’ spending picked up substantially. Several credit cards and credit lines that had a zero balance were soon loaded to their limit with debt.

Rocheford testified at trial that in September 2016, Collins had confided in him that he was afraid of Kelly, and said Kelly had pressured him into giving Kelly power of attorney. Rocheford and Collins had gone to lunch in St. Paul at Dixie’s on Grand. In the middle of the restaurant, Rocheford recalled, Collins began to cry.

Rocheford contacted Ramsey County Adult Protection, but the office provided no help other than informing him Collins would have to file a complaint on his own, he said. “They asked me, ‘Does he have a car? Yes? Then he can just walk out of his house, get in his car and drive away.’ … They said they were not going to do anything.”

Rocheford later received a letter, signed by a county social worker, indicating in two sentences that the county had declined to open a case. Amy Mason — the attorney for Collins’ adult sons — introduced the Oct. 11, 2016, letter at trial, but Adult Protection claimed they had no knowledge or record of it.

“I sent a subpoena, and they said they had no responsive records,” said Mason, who later met with an assistant attorney in the Ramsey County attorney’s office in an unsuccessful effort to have Kelly investigated. “They never produced it.”

On Oct. 28, 2022, a spokesperson for the county noted that under state statute, copies of adult protection reports that are not investigated or determined to be false do not have to be maintained after three years.

Kelly has a criminal history, Mason noted. In March 2015, Kelly pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court to negligent operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, as well as second-degree driving while under the influence, both gross misdemeanors.

In April 2013, Kelly was convicted in a Tennessee court of violating probation in Williamson County, following a 2012 conviction for driving under the influence and resisting arrest. In August 2002, he was arrested by the Franklin Police Department, also in Tennessee, on suspicion of harassment and trespassing.

This information on Kelly’s criminal background was not introduced in the probate trial, mostly due to the length of the trial, Mason said.

Increasingly isolated

Rocheford, who encouraged Collins in 2016 to file a police report against Kelly, later joined Collins for their joint Thanksgiving party, an annual tradition in which Collins would open his doors to people who had nowhere else to go. Kelly refused to come downstairs and stayed in his room, he recalled.

Rocheford said he wondered why Kelly wanted to avoid him. He later came to believe he knew the reason: he was as skeptical as his friend was trusting. “The facade that Kelly put on wouldn’t have worked on me,” he said.

For months afterward, despite repeated phone calls, Rocheford could not get Collins on the phone, according to the legal petitions filed by Collins’ sons.

In late 2016 and early 2017, Kelly began demanding that Allen Collins and his former partner Sheila Shelton relinquish their stake in an Iowa farm that Collins had helped his son and ex-wife buy back out of bankruptcy. Kelly inserted himself into the ownership dispute, at one point threatening to have Shelton thrown off the farm property and prosecuted for criminal fraud, according to the court filings.

In September 2017, according to the probate petition, Collins and Kelly approached Murphy Collins Cannon, who had lived with his family rent-free for the previous 10 years in the adjoining apartment within the Linwood Avenue duplex. Kelly demanded that the Cannons begin paying rent, according to the legal petition. He also insisted upon some $75,000 to $100,000 in back rent. Instead, the Cannons moved out the next month.

When Collins liquidated his Xcel Energy stock in February 2018, the $127,000 was deposited into Kelly’s bank account, according to the family’s legal petitions. By that April, Kelly had convinced Collins to sign a legal document that awarded him all of Collins’ personal property, including his large collection of silver, crystal and china.

The two men met with an estate planning attorney to map out a will that excluded Collins’ sons but left money to his grandchildren. A judge later found that Kelly was present for six out of the seven hours of meetings, and Kelly at times had phone conversations with the estate attorney on his own. In March 2018, Collins signed a death deed leaving Kelly his home if he passed away, though his sons later questioned in legal filings whether the signature was forged or made under duress.

Both sons testified that when either son called their father, Kelly answered the phone. Whenever Cannon met with his father alone for a meal, Kelly insisted that Collins record the entire conversation on his cellphone, they said. In July 2018, Shelton filed a vulnerable adult report with Ramsey County, but had no success in getting the county to open an investigation.

Collins, who sought therapy for depression, began to tell people that Kelly — who was younger than him by 25 years — had pressed him into a romantic relationship, and the two were in the “best and worst days” of their romance, according to the legal filings. A contractor testified at trial that he was hired to install new flooring that was three times the cost of typical materials from Home Depot, among other pricey home improvements.

Collins assured friends at the time that Kelly had put $60,000 of his own money into the project, but Collins’ children questioned whether that was true.

Legal records show that a Golden Valley-based collections agency sought more than $10,000 from Kelly for unpaid credit card debt in 2018, but he failed to respond to the legal summons. That November, Ramsey County courts entered a legal judgment against him for the full amount.

Overall, the two men spent $238,000 in 2018, but their household income for the year was $70,000, according to the judicial findings. Kelly testified at trial that Collins was always aware of how much money was going in and out, but the judge was unconvinced. “The Court … finds this testimony lacks credibility,” wrote Ramsey County District Judge Sara Grewing in her ruling, released last December.

A fatal fall down a flight of stairs

Disgusted, Rocheford declined to attend his traditional joint Thanksgiving celebration with Collins in November 2018, according to the petitions, but others in attendance reported that Kelly did not allow Collins to speak to anyone without Kelly in the room, and that he timed Collins as he served dinner and criticized him for being too slow.

The following February, Rocheford met with Collins for lunch at the University Club in St. Paul, for what was to be the last time they would ever see each other. Rocheford, his sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous for more than 30 years, asked if he was drinking or using drugs. He received no answer. “Rocheford also asked him if he had signed over the home,” reads the probate petition filed by Collins’ sons. “Once again, J.P. did not answer the question.”

He acknowledged his relationship with Kelly had turned sexual.

Related Articles

Collins fell down his own flight of stairs four months later, on June 9, 2019 — his 81st birthday — and was admitted to Regions Hospital without Rocheford or his family’s knowledge. His sons learned of his hospitalization more than two months later, but by that time, only days remained. He died on Aug. 11, 2019.

Mason, the attorney for Collins’ sons, sat down with a fraud investigator from the St. Paul Police Department and an assistant county attorney, but was unable to convince them to pursue a criminal case against Kelly. A police department spokesman could not locate a police report about the matter.

“The Ramsey County Attorney’s office is not an investigative agency,” said Dennis Gerhardstein, a spokesman for the office, on Oct. 28. “We review cases presented to our office from law enforcement for charging consideration and a case was never presented to us for review in this matter.”

A matter of legal trust

That September, Collins’ sons filed legal petitions in Ramsey County District Court with the goal of voiding the real estate deed and other estate documents involving Kelly, alleging his “undue influence” over their father, while proclaiming themselves the rightful heirs. That October, the two sons filed a separate legal petition seeking to void their father’s legal trust for the same reasons. They sought $353,000 in damages and compensation from Kelly.

In December, following the June evidentiary hearing that involved some three weeks of testimony, Grewing — the judge — determined that Collins’ death deed, will and revocable trust were all arranged under Kelly’s undue influence, and that his sons were indeed his heirs.

She limited the amount Kelly would have to pay Collins’ estate to about $74,000. The sum was roughly equivalent to the funds remaining from the sale of Xcel Energy stocks and the frequent $2,400 checks that Collins had paid him, as well as spending incurred after his death.

Each son’s attorney’s fees would come from Collins’ estate, she ordered. The sons’ other claims — forgery, intentional misrepresentation and exploitation of a vulnerable adult — were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be retried.

Grewing awarded the Iowa farm to Collins’ estate, and appointed Rocheford as the estate’s representative. In January, Rocheford had Kelly evicted from the Linwood Avenue property, only to learn Kelly had already left. Around the same time, Kelly’s attorneys withdrew as his legal counsel. A reporter’s call to the Minneapolis-based firm that represented Kelly was not returned.

Rocheford joined Collins’ sons in cleaning out the duplex and putting it on the market. The house was repainted and sold in August. Much of the rest of the estate has gone to creditors, or had already been spent down, Rocheford said.

Last month, officials with the Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility confirmed that they had begun an inquiry into whether Kelly’s behavior would qualify for disciplinary action against his law license, which is currently inactive. The office can recommend suspensions, disbarment and other licensing penalties to the Minnesota Supreme Court, but their recommendations have yet to be completed and made public.

Anyone who suspects an elder has been the victim of any form of undue influence or abuse can call the Minnesota Adult Abuse Reporting Center at 1-844-880-1574. The agency is designated by the Minnesota Department of Human Services to forward reports to the appropriate investigative agencies.

Related Articles