The life and death of Ralph Barclay Neil (Ralph Neil, Ralph B. Neil, Neil, Ralph), and experiences with one of his sons.
Ken Neil, Ken l Lyle Neil, Ralph Barclay Neil (Ralph Neil, Ralph B. Neil, Neil, Ralph), Kenneth Lyle Neil, Ray Brown (Raymond C. Brown, Deceased (obituary), Teresa Neil, Teresa Neal, Bimbo Neil, 53 foot Skookum sailboat, SV Spellbound, Ray (Raymond) Brown (deceased), Barbara jo Neil, Barbara Jo Clough, Barbara Jo Brown, Doug Brown, James Neil, Gladys Brown, Carl Brown, Everett Neil, Corrine (Corine) Neil, Russel Neil, Stockholm Syndrome, kidnappers, Mike Bender (San Francisco Attorney)

THIS IS PAGE 2 RETURN TO PAGE 1 Sailing Vessel S/V Sailboat "Spellbound", 53' Skookum Appended on February 23, 2021 How important is the subject of estate quarrels to the American public? THIS important: Also see: "How to legally disown a brother" Sailing Vessel S/V Sailboat "Spellbound", 53' Skookum This editorial page chronicles a portion of the life, and the death of Ralph Barclay Neil (aka "Bimbo") (this nickname did not have the connotation in the 1950's that is does now) of Tacoma, Washington, his death in 2008 and its bizarre aftermath, and my experiences with one of his adopted sons, Kenneth Lyle Neil (Ken Neil) 4409 N. 44th St. Tacoma, WA 98407 This editorial document contains and includes my opinions:   Ralph Barclay Neil (Ralph Neil, AKA "Bimbo") Kenneth Lyle Neil (Ken Neil) (I have NO adult pictures of Ken without a beer in his hand) Kenneth Lyle Neil (Ken Neil) (I have NO adult pictures of Ken without a beer in his hand) Kenneth Lyle Neil (Ken Neil) Sue Ellen Bender, Sue Ellen Neil "Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive social contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations. Often betrayal is the act of supporting a rival group, or it is a complete break from previously decided upon or presumed norms by one party from the others. Someone who betrays others is commonly called a traitor or betrayer".   Distress (Excerpted from here) The most immediate effect of the betrayal of trust is in the emotional impact on the person betrayed. Generally speaking, the greater the trust that you had put in the other person and the greater the impact their betrayal has on you, then the greater the distress you will feel. A number of different emotions may be felt upon realizing you have been betrayed. The most common is anger although, depending on the situation, you might the fear of loss of the relationship and repulsion at the lack of integrity of the other person. Loss of trust When you are betrayed by someone, it is highly likely that you will not easily trust them again. Trust is fragile and can be lost instantly or there is a hysterisis whereby a long-earned trust may be eroded and then suddenly lost. Justice When a person feels that they have been betrayed, they may well seek some form of justice, putting right (at least for them) what they feel has been wronged, including their sensibilities. So what? So don't get into these situations!! If you betray someone, it is often best to come clean. Accept responsibility for personal failure and personally apologize. Demonstrate how you will fix process failure, and offer compensation. The alternatives to these recovery actions may cost you much more. . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ . Copyright © 2009 Truth-or-Consequences.com My Experiences with and Opinions of: Ken Neil, of Tacoma, Washington, And Family "Attorney" Mike Bender of California   THIS IS PAGE 2 RETURN TO PAGE 1   (continued from page 1) In 2006 Ralph changed his will to give Nancy $15,000, me $1000, and Ken everything else. At first his estate was thought to be worth around half a million. The day before he went into the hospital he'd put a FOR SALE sign on the boat for $375,000, and he boasted to Ken of this investment and that insurance policy and these stocks and those bonds, inflating their value by often ten times. The boat was worth, in reality, perhaps $125,000. His bills were in the tens of thousands. Little else of value existed except about $22,000 in a checking account and another race car worth perhaps $20,000 (which Ken had planned to sell to buy another Harley). Ralph had repeatedly mentioned to my son, for no apparent or particular reason, that I had been taken care of and allowed for in the will. Looking back, I realize that was Ralph's final insult to me, his coupe de grace, his final act of calculated meanness. When he made those comments I'd been out of the will for 20 years or more. Ralph knew that my son was a principled man, and that if he knew Ralph had perpetrated such a stunt, my son would dismiss him instantly and forever as the crumb of human existence that he turned out to be. So Ralph lied. In Ralph's last decade of life he'd run off virtually everyone and anyone who'd spend time with him. He was a spoiled, selfish brat who craved attention, even if he had to come by it illegitimately and dishonestly, so he strung my son along, making him believe that he, Ralph, was doing the proper and honorable thing when he had no intention whatsoever of doing so. THIS was the distilled essence of the character and soul of Ralph B. Neil.. As all this hit me that day on the phone with Ken, I realized for the first time that Ralph was simply not a decent human being. No human being would have done that to both of his sons, especially since HIS father's wish was that ALL of the estate that Ralph had inherited, be handed down to Ken, and me, and Jim, had Jim been alive. That Ralph had EVER been taken in by the likes of Nancy demonstrated that he was not only not the brightest bulb in the string, but very probably was not fully rational or sane, even back as far as 1990. I had to, once and for all, pull myself up by my bootstraps and see Ralph Neil clearly, logically, truthfully. It took me months to accomplish that. But at that moment my grieving stopped, as I realized I'd been kicked in the face yet again by this objectionable human being. Where my mind and soul had been reeling with a million conflicting emotions, that number suddenly became a billion. I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed by Ralph's action, and I was overwhelmed by the fact that Ken had not lifted a finger to set this right. There's an old episode of Northern Exposure in which the black brother of the white radio DJ comes to town and announces that their common father (!?) had passed and left the DJ nothing, but that, as brothers share, he was giving the DJ half of the estate. The DJ thanked him. It was simply what was done between brothers. It's what I had done in dividing Jeanne's "estate". It's what I would have done with Ralph's estate. But Ken obviously didn't see it that way. As executor of the will he was going to give me $1000, and that was that. I simply had to come to grips with it. I asked for the return of the money I'd spent on Ralph's services. My reasoning was that if Ken and Sue Ellen stood to gain several hundred thousand dollars, and they were giving me a total of $1000, they could afford to reimburse me for my half of the funeral expenses. Sue Ellen did send it to me, grudgingly, with a nasty, vindictive note. Good ol' Sue Ellen, always inappropriate. It was exactly then that both Ken and Sue Ellen began telling people that I was "just out to get money". That cost Sue Ellen ALL of my respect, and it cost Ken the lion's share. Ken stated repeatedly he would never pay Nancy's $15,000. I was appalled. I appealed to his sense of decency -- but I simply couldn't get through to him. I explained that it wasn't "his" money to make decisions with. The $15,000 had NEVER belonged to him. It had belonged to Ralph, and now it belonged to Nancy. Ken was merely the legal instrument with which to disseminate it. But he angrily refused to discuss the matter. He adamantly, angrily refused to send Nancy the $15,000 Ralph had left her. I knew Ken hated her more than I did, but it simply didn't matter. Ken had agreed to take responsibility for a sacred oath when he signed on as executor of Ralph's will. Ken did not then become the "owner" of funds that were bequeathed to someone else. It was not his decision to give Nancy the money or not. He was duty-bound to do it. He had no choice whatsoever, legally and criminally, but, more importantly, he had no choice morally. One simply MAY NOT promise a dying benefactor to disperse his wealth to someone you don't like, and then, when the person is gone, keep the money for yourself. It simply isn't done. It isn't done anywhere this side of anarchy. It isn't done. It cannot be done. It may not ever be done. It is unthinkable. It is a mark of the lowest possible caliber of human being. I say it again: I was appalled. A week or so after having this conversation with Ken, I wrote him and included this passage regarding Nancy: ...As for Nancy, we all know what she is. She is in the worst three or four people I’ve ever known. But she was in the will. It is the most basic interpretation of the most basic form of honor and principle that she receive the $15,000 she was awarded, without the slightest hesitation. Sure it would hurt. If I were executor of the will I’d scream into a pillow for at least three hours before I wrote her the check, and I would have included a letter with the check that told her what EVERYONE thought of her in no uncertain terms. But she would still get it no matter what. No. Matter. What. I would stake my life on that fact, no matter how much it galled and disgusted and enraged me, because that is what honor and principle is about. I’m sorry you chose a different solution. It should have never seriously occurred to you not to give it to her and even if you give it to her at a later date you must always live with the knowledge that it was at least your intention to cheat her... I received no reply. In fact, Ken never spoke to me again. Ken has intimated to others that he feels I owe him an apology. Perhaps I do. But for what, specifically? For the above passage? Ken has been asked repeatedly to stand up straight and state clearly what his beef is. He won't do it. Over six months later, he still refuses to do it. I have come to realize that the Ken Neil I thought I knew was an illusion, an imaginary figure concocted in my own mind. He never existed. I don't know who this Ken Neil person in Tacoma is. He's a stranger.. A week or so hence we were scheduled to move Ralph's boat from one marina to another, closer to Ken's house. Since I was the only one in the family with extensive boating experience (321 rescues in the Pacific), it was deemed that I should move the boat, and during the trip we would scatter Ralph's ashes on the water, per his wish. A day before that trip I was informed that I was no longer needed to move the boat. Nor was I to be included in any scattering of the ashes. In a way, it was a last straw. I'd been none-too gently elbowed out of my birthright, and not even allowed to partake of the scattering of the ashes. I called Ken several times after that, hoping we could try to find a way to come to terms with what was clearly a rift. Ken refused to call back. I wrote to him again. He refused to reply. I went to Tacoma; he refused to show up to meet us in person. My grief for Ralph as a father or even as a human being evaporated. I didn't know who I was grieving for! Clearly, the man who died in that hospital bed wasn't the man I'd thought was my father. My father was a mean-boned, violent drunk who usually chose women and children to beat on, instead of men his own size -- and on the few occasions he'd tried that, he'd lost. I needed to back away from all emotion and to struggle to see who this individual was. I began writing this story, honestly cataloguing all the good, and all the bad. In the end, I found little good, and mountains of bad. It took six months to come to terms with who Ralph Neil had really been. I'd thought that, no matter how dishonest, shameful, overbearing, sneaky, controlling, and illogical he had been, there was, underneath it all, a solid bedrock of strict adherence to the basic universal principles.....principles of right and wrong. I would have easily staked my life on that assumption. I never questioned it. I knew it was there. Deep down, where perhaps no one could ever see or had ever seen, he was a noble man. As surely as there is sunlight, I believed this. I would have staked my life a thousand times over on that belief, just as I would have staked my life a thousand times over on Ken stepping up and sharing my own birthright with me. I would have lost my life in that bet. Think of it like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. Luke KNEW Darth Vader was good at his core. He staked his life on it, and the survival of the Empire. And he was right. I staked my soul on that very same illusion, and I was wrong. I was wrong. I was as wrong as any human being can be about anything. The man was just another low-life louse, and he stupidly passed the family fortune, what little he hadn't already squandered on stupid women, other men's wives, and booze, to Ken Neil, another low-life louse, so HE could squander it foolishly on stupid women and booze.   Once I choked that inescapable conclusion down, I began to look at the rest of the family. I found precious little to respect. There was a grandfather who'd been a somewhat famous lawman in Montana around turn of the century. He was known as a kick-ass town-cleaner. I found a great deal to respect about him. Then it was learned he had sexually molested Ralph when Ralph was a kid and John was X'd from my list of family to respect. Except for Ralph's father, I could find no others unless I went back 400 years to Scotland. I began to make arrangements to legally drop the family name. I'm undecided to this day. 400 years is a long way to go back to find a single fleck of honor. Perhaps the family is simply too dishonorable to be a part of.. Someone in the family approached Ken about his intentions regarding me and the will, since Ken's refusal to even discuss the matter with me was becoming quite conspicuous. Ken and Sue Ellen immediately stated they had intended to give me 25% of the net proceeds of the estate, and that this had been their intention all along, since being present at the will signing way back in 2006. I'd love to believe that. But if that had indeed been the case, Ken would have had no qualms about sitting down with me for 35 seconds and saying, "Well, I'm afraid you were cut out of the will, just as I was until 2006. But I feel that's wrong, and I intend to do X." That's all that was required: 35 seconds. Simple. Painless. REQUIRED. A simple act of respect for a brother. The most elementary code of ethics dictates that you sit down and tell the family up front where they stand. I cannot begin to imagine the mentality of a person who could not figure this out, or who refuses to do it over more than six months even when the indecency of it is pointed out to them. Ken needs to remember that he, too, was cut out of the will (he didn't even get a hundred bucks) until 2006. But Ken flatly refused to step up, given chance after chance after chance after chance. Had it been his intention to give me anything more than $1000 he would have stepped up to the plate during our last phone conversation, and he would have said, "Well, the old man left you $1000, but I feel that's wrong, and so I intend to cut you in for X amount." But of course he didn't do that either. As it turns out, the will didn't award me $1000, it awarded me $100, same as Ralph's mother had left him. Ken did raise that up -- all the way from $100, to $1000 out of a then-expected net worth of half a million dollars. If Ken had really meant "all along" to give me $25%, he would have said so then and there. I believe that he came up with the 25% figure only when he was pressured to do SOMETHING morally correct several months later. Sources tell me he has now decided to forgo even the 25%. I expect to have to take him to small claims court for the lousy $100. Could I sue over this? Of course. Ralph was documentably "incapable" for many years before his death. He kept thousands of notes, detailing each conversation he had with each person, and at what time and day, because the fact was that he simply wasn't keeping up with reality. But I won't sue Ken. If this is truly what Ken believes he deserves (everything), then he should have it. He apparently believes he was an only child. So be it. If Ken is to ever give me any portion of my own birthright, he has to do it voluntarily, from the heart, not because he's FORCED, but because it's simply the right thing to do. My son brought me a few trinkets of Ralph's jewelry, given to him by his father. A few cuff links from Yellowstone, a tie-clip. I've returned them to Ken. If I find more, I'll return that too. If Ken wants everything that badly, he should have it. I have no idea who he is anymore. I don't know if Ken was NEVER the person I imagined him to be, or if alcohol has eroded his thinking and changed the very core of his being. Perhaps it's a bit of both. But I'll make the promise here and now, and I consider it irrevocable: If Ken ever wants help to stop drinking, I'll put him in any program he wants or needs at my expense. Anytime, day or night, I'll respond to his request for help, no matter what. Even if I end up disowning him as a brother because of this outrageous fiasco, as seems likely at this moment, I'll still honor that one promise. Forever. I may not speak to him -- but I'll help him with that. I see Ralph Neil as the gleeful culprit in Ken's alcoholism, and if I can undo that, I will. Sue Ellen, on the other hand, can go suck a fish. The day Ralph died, as I was standing with Ken out on the street just before I left to go home, Ken related to me a story that had occurred recently involving his neighbor across the street. Ken said he (Ken) and a friend had been partying in Ken's house recently. When it was time for the friend to leave around midnight, Ken and the friend walked out to the street where we then stood, and fired off his Harley. He razzed the pipes a few times, then he and Ken stood talking for awhile while the Harley idled. Harley's don't idle (they don't do much of anything else properly either), so you have to rap them every minute or two to keep them cleared out and running. Ken's friend was proud of the sound of his bike so he did this often. Finally the neighbor from across the street stepped out onto his porch and asked politely (by Ken's own admission) if they could keep it down, as it was late and he had children sleeping and he was trying to watch television in his own living room in this otherwise nearly silent residential neighborhood -- where the guy was paying exorbitant property taxes in North Tacoma for the express and specific purpose of avoiding problems like he was just that minute having. Ken's comment to me was in effect, "Can you imagine the nerve of that son of a bitch?!" Ken was outraged at the man's gall, and gave him a ration of crap for his simple, decent request. I told Ken I would have taken the neighbor's side -- I would have apologized for the noise, apologized for the stupidity of the friend, and apologized for my brother's arrogance, belligerence and wrong-headedness. Ken was aghast at my position. I wonder where Ken gets these bizarre versions of morality. --Then I remember that Ralph wasn't the man I imagined him to be, morally, either, and Ralph taught Ken everything he knew. Alcoholism also plays a huge role in the erosion of one's sense of what's appropriate and right. They simply lose track of reality, even during those brief periods when they're sober. It's tragic, and it accounts, directly and indirectly, for probably the majority of all the troubles in the world because it circumvents and short-circuits the brain's natural processes of logic. I have a t-shirt which reads: "Help Stop Terrorism: Kill a DUI". I wear it often. I am vehemently opposed to the faulty morality of all drunk drivers. I've put many of them in jail. I've been hit by them three times. I've lost dear friends to them. Yet Ken called me often, slurring his words so badly I could hardly understand him, while driving home from work. I never once expressed my horror over this to Ken, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. And THAT was WRONG. Jim (James) Neil was Ralph's and Barbara's second adoption. Both Ken and Jim were treated, generally, far better than I. I've often pondered this, and the only conclusion I can come to is that Ralph was more worried about the state taking Ken and/or Jim due to abuse, than he was worried about them taking me, his natural son. My running away from home may have convinced Ralph to try to moderate his tantrums, too. At any rate Jim was, honestly, a screw-up. He was a drug dealer and a copious drug user. He made his living from one or another type of graft or theft or fraud all of his life. He never held a decent or steady job. He stole from apartments and boats for a living for years and decades. It's just what he did. In Jim's defense, he suffered from very serious health problems from birth. I don't for one minute think Jim was inherently bad or evil. But he was sick all of his life, and he was troubled. I felt badly for him, but I had little use for him and only saw him twice in adult life; on both occasions he offered to sell me drugs and stolen goods. But Jim was one of three brothers, for better or for worse, and had he been alive, he'd have been absolutely, positively, irrevocably, undeniably entitled to an equal share of his own birthright from Ralph. If Jim had been a child rapist and Anti-Christ, he would have been entitled to his equal share, whether Ralph was speaking to him or not, and I would have defended that right with my life. ANY decent person would! It's. What. One. Does. I can't help but wonder what tiny slice Ken would have promised to Jim, if any, had he been alive. My son hasn't yet received the title to the car Ralph left him. Ken gave him physical possession of the car, but the title hasn't been forthcoming. Perhaps it's hung up in probate. I wonder if the title will ever be forthcoming, even when probate has been satisfied. Will Ken decide he wants that too? Will my son have to sue him for it? I have no idea. No one knows. I told my son a dozen times that I would stake my life on the fact, the FACT that Ken wouldn't screw him, or me. But it was clearly his choice to screw Nancy, and now apparently me as well. So is my son merely next in line? Ken tells people repeatedly that his (Ken's) friends advise him "all the time" not to give either my son the car, or anything to me. Nice friends. And for what purpose on God's green earth does Ken repeatedly bring this up? Is he trying to convince himself to go along with the wishes of his friends because that is, in reality, what he wants? Do his "friends" see a cut in this for themselves somehow? Does Ken bring this up over and over, hoping to convince himself that it's okay to just screw EVERYONE? Is Ken trying to judge people's reaction to that possibility, just wanting to know exactly how angry people would be if he actually did that? Even Ken's friends have themselves gone to my son and expressed their surprise that Ken has, so far, elected to follow Ralph's express wish and give my son the car. What kind of friends are these? Who needs friends like these? And how bloody crude and disrespectful is it to constantly repeat these unkind comments to my son! What a bloody circus! What a royal and colossal cluster fuck! If I EVER had a so-called friend who stepped around me in such a situation, and made such an asinine statement to someone close to me, I'd send that "friend" on his way so fast it'd make his already dizzy head spin. With friends like that, who needs---- Years ago Ken's grandmother (Gladys Brown) passed away. It was generally understood that Ken should receive her house, or at least a portion of it (Ken's version). Ken deserved it in any case; he was a good, faithful, loving, helpful grandson to Barbara's mother. I had always like Barbara's father -- the mother, not so much. But Ken did genuinely love her, and she him, and he was the perfect grandson to her. But Ken's adopted mother, Barbara Neil / Clough, somehow got control of the house. According to Ken she promised to give him his "share". But, of course, she never quite got around to it. Ice cream is expensive these days. Ken lamented that he saw that as an absolutely heinous and dishonorable way to treat him. I agree. And I see no difference whatsoever in this situation with Ralph, and me, and my son and Ken. It's a known fact that people will rationalize just about any behavior when money is involved. I thought Ken was above that. I thought we were truly brothers. But then I thought Ralph was my father, too. And I was wrong. Ken and Sue Ellen have been telling friends and relatives that as far as they're concerned, I'm "just out to get money". Let's recap this situation: Ken admitted Ralph had about $22,000 in his checking account; that seems to have vanished. Ralph left Ken a race car which he plans to sell to buy a new Harley; nothing in that for me. Ken says he hopes to roll all of Ralph's stocks into his 401k. No mention of anything for me. Ken got the boat valued by Ralph at $375,000 (but realistically worth $125,000); Ken once said he'd give me 25% of that, but then apparently thought better of it and recanted. Out of all this, Ken plans (or at least once planned) to give me a grand total of $1000 (out of the goodness of his heart). And yet these two, Ken and Sue Ellen, run around telling my son, my relatives, and their friends, that I'm just out to get money. I was stunned by that and am deeply angered by it and I get angrier every time I think about it -- so I try not to think about it. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. This is stupid, backwards, selfish thinking and I'm sick of it. I met Ken's current wife, Sue Ellen Neil (Bender), a few years ago for the first time. Moments before I met her, I automatically assigned her a "value" of 100, as I do almost all people I've never met. She automatically had 100 "points" in her "respect-account", inside my psyche. I considered her to be a "good person" without any reservations. It was then up to her, and her character, to either add to that score, or detract from it, as I learned who she was. By the time we parted from that first meeting, her respect-score was down to 60 points, but I remained hopeful. Perhaps I'd missed something -- perhaps her drunkenness was a one-off mistake, a mere error in judgment, never to be repeated. Our second meeting caused Sue Ellen's point score to drop another forty points. And each subsequent meeting caused another 40 point drop. When I endured an afternoon with her in which she was so drunk she could barely stay in her chair and even Ken, who was nearly as drunk, had to repeatedly ask her to quiet down, and when, at the end of THAT painful meeting I watched her climb into a car, drunk as a damned skunk, her point level plummeted several hundred points. Later, when she came home from shopping and gleefully showed off a new product she'd found at the store which helped drunk drivers hide their booze in the car, and exclaimed, "Why didn't they invent these a long time ago!", my esteem for this clod of a broad dropped a final ten thousand points. From that moment forward she would never be allowed in our home again. I estimate that of all the calls I made to Ken, or he to me while he was driving, fully 70% revealed him to be so drunk he couldn't properly speak. I have no clue how he got to his destination, and he often lamented the "stupid" politicians and police who wrote and enforced laws against drunk driving. My TRUE sentiment toward drunk drivers is posted here. I have no more patience for dishonorable human beings. There are a few, a very few people in the world who count and who have value and who struggle every single day to be honorable and moral and decent. They do this even when they can't afford to, and that's the true mark of an honorable man. The lesson I've learned in this is to pick your friends carefully, but pick your family even more carefully. I no longer believe that blood is thicker than water. If you don't respect someone, cut them loose. Completely. Forever. End of problem. Unfortunately, I still respect Ken, though I cannot at this moment tell you why. Unfortunately, I still love Ken, though I cannot at this moment tell you why. I'm profoundly disappointed in Ken. I'm supremely disgusted with him. How will these diametrically opposed emotions resolve themselves? I don't at this moment know. Perhaps I'll come to realize that the Ken I thought I knew never existed, and my memories of Ken will go the way of my memories of Ralph -- into the toilet with one last significant flush. Or perhaps Ken will find some way to show me that I'm completely and utterly mistaken about him at this moment. Honestly, the former seems most likely. But I welcome the latter. There are people worth knowing. But it's far tougher to identify them than I ever imagined. In sorting through Ralph's bizarre collection of belongings (entire lockers stuffed with empty pickle jars, old presto-logs he had tried to glue back together when they got wet, etc.), my son found one interesting box (it was clear to me that I wasn't welcome to go through my own father's things). It contains letters written by my mother, sent to me in care of Ralph, beginning the first week after I arrived at Ralph and Barbara's happy asylum at age 5. I've only read three of those letters; there are dozens upon dozens more. They ask if I'm happy and doing ok, and they say she's sorry she can't come to help me. They say she'll be watching over me and that she would do anything if I would just write back to her. She asks about Midnight, the alley cat, and wishes me well and hopes that I'll stay strong and she tells me she loves me with all her heart and hopes we'll be together again someday. These were all delivered to Ralph, weekly at first, then monthly for all the years I lived with him. He never mentioned them, never alluded to them, not even in my adult years, not even when he decided not to speak to me again when I was 50. For this he has shown me that he was not ever a man worthy of the slightest respect. He was never worthy of the warmth of my home, or of the food on my table, or of my tears or even my thoughts. Ralph Neil was a write-off. As a human being he draws a blank. For life he gets an "F". Ken believes Ralph was a saint. Ken is a blind man, raised by a fool, as was I. I hope someday he decides to see, but I believe alcohol has so pickled his brain that simple logic has become impossible for him. I don't know if I'll be there for him or not. I've been disrespected and pushed as far as I can be pushed. Perhaps far beyond that. I'll never see a dime of my birthright; that's finally clear. Ralph passed his errant code of ethics to Ken and Ken, at least so far, embraces them as valid and true. Ken will, bit by bit, work hard to rationalize the screwing of me in his own mind, until he feels perfectly justified in keeping the total sum. He'll do that because that's the version of morality that Ralph and Barbara taught him by example. He'll tell himself that I insulted him, that I was mean to him, that I should apologize to him (maybe I should, but for what, he won't say), or that he simply needs the money more (a la Russell Neil and Barbara Clough). When a person WANTS to do something badly enough, they can ALWAYS convince themselves it's morally ok to do it (a la worldwide Catholicism). I knew in my heart this is what Ken planned to do that first day after Ralph passed away, the minute he started telling me about all the cool things he was going to buy, conveniently forgetting to mention me at all. I'm sorry that Ken couldn't even muster the simple human decency to sit me down for 30 seconds and politely inform me that I'd been cut out of the will, BEFORE he so proudly prattled on about what he had planned for every single item and aspect of Ralph's little remaining wealth. Ken will come up with all sorts of reasons to justify in his own mind giving me nothing, but in the end it will be because Ken simply wants the money for himself. The simple fact that at no point or juncture could Ken muster the simple human courtesy to step up and tell me, his own brother, what was what with regard to the will and his intentions or lack thereof in that capacity, ripped a rift between us that is probably irreparable. It's like taking a machete and hacking off a man's leg, then the arm on that same side. It's an injury that will never heal, can never be repaired or even atoned for, but at least, at LEAST, the perpetrator has a moral obligation to say, "I'm sorry." Ken pointedly and steadfastly refuses to do even that. I was wrong all my life about Ralph's basic character. I was wrong all my life about Ken's basic character. I'm tired of being wrong so spectacularly. It's time to step back and take in the bigger picture, painful as that can often be. As I conclude this page, the life and times of Ralph B. Neil, I find that, today, my load is lighter. I look forward to quality people in my life, and better times, and I have no need to glance back into the darkness. I choose to look ahead. I find that even the eventual prospect of leaving life on this earth holds more the promise of brighter experiences and better relationships, than does looking backward, into my past with Ralph and the Hell he created around him. In a thousand years this will all be forgotten -- except that one's actions and decisions, all of them, are held in trust by the soul, forever. My secret dream for Ken Neil might have been the following: First, give me some money, don't give me some money, give the money to charity, give the money to Pee Wee Herman, burn the money in a wood stove, give it to the "Save the Gay Whales for Jeezus" Foundation, blow it on huge-screen TVs, buy a truckload of beer, make paper airplanes of the bills and sail them from the Space Needle, shove it all up Ralph Neil's ass (if he still had an ass) -- whatever would be most entertaining and poetic. But AT LEAST TELL ME WHERE I STAND. Ken's living a dog's life here in the lower forty eight states, as most people do. He works for a soulless corporation which pushes him harder and harder and harder every week, for less and less money. The lifestyle here is causing him health issues. Ken's drinking (it's called al-co-hol-ism) is seriously detracting from the quality of his life, and will almost certainly cost him his life in a relatively short time. I might have wanted to take Ken to Alaska, find him a pretty, sober, devoted wife, teach him to hunt and fish, teach him to SLOW DOWN, show him that SOME human beings DO live by a moral code NO MATTER WHAT, and watch him HAPPILY and HONORABLY live out his life. But first, Ken would have had to stand up straight on his own two legs, away from the dubious influence of questionable "friends", children and spouses, and simply state what HIS intentions were for MY birthright. That should have been done BEFORE he started spouting off about all the great toys and trinkets he was going to buy with my own biological father's money. That's the barest minimum that is required and expected of ANY human being in the same or similar circumstances. Tell people where they stand. That's all! Just be up front and straightforward! If Ken planned to cut me out, which is what I believe, then he should have had the God damned backbone to stand up straight and tell me. Simple. Honorable. You grit your teeth and do it. Period. You grit your teeth and do it. It's part of what BEING A MAN is all about. But Ken couldn't be bothered to grant me that tiny degree of simple human courtesy or respect. So much for the sacred bond of brothers. Hell, so much for the basic bond of friendship! In fact, I can barely imagine a situation in which I would have denied the stranger on the street, or even an enemy, a mere clarification of their standing with regard to their own birthright. With the exception of the man who kidnapped my wife, I've never had an enemy so objectionable that I would have withheld that from them. I never dreamed Ken was of this caliber. I positively never dreamed it. I've defended his character against all comers, all of my life. I expected to be treated at least as well as the stranger on the street. I'm sorry Ken couldn't even grant me that. And that's where it stands, probably forever. . NOTE 3-22-09: Any and all new developments will be posted below: Update, 3-30-09: . TO: Registered Receipt: 420 98418 9121 8052 ---- Hay Law Firm P.S. 201 South 34th Street Tacoma, WA., 98418        (253) 272-2400     (253)-272-2537 Re: Estate and Probate of Ralph B. Neil Andrew Hay, Enclosed is a 37 page document [this web page]. Please include this in the permanent record re the matter of the probate of the estate of Ralph Barclay Neil. Please do not restrict access to this document by the public. Please do not reply. [signature]         3-30-09 . Update, 8-05-09: The estate cleared probate many months ago. A couple of months after it cleared, Ken did sign over ownership of the car that Ralph had given my son, all the while telling my son repeatedly that Ken's "friends" advised him ad nauseam not to give my son anything. I happen to know that much of this urging came from the alcoholic half sister in California, who was angry because she (1) didn't receive a dime herself, and (2) wasn't even included in Ralph's list of people to notify upon his death. We'll never know if Ken signed over the vehicle because it was the right thing to do and was Ralph's wish, or if he was afraid of being sued if he tried to keep it for himself. I was not given the $100 I was awarded in the will. I was offered not one item of Ralph's belongings outside of a few hand wrenches from his toolbox or some tie clasps. I was Ken's brother five minutes before he realized he had inherited everything. One minute after that I was inconsequential. I finally understand that I never will receive anything from my own Father's estate. I'm sorry that Ken adopted Ralph's amoral sense of morality, but I suppose Ralph was the only role model Ken had. Then again, Ralph was the only role model I had, too, yet my moral fabric is at the very least, better. I deeply regret ever having met or known Ralph Neil. I can find nothing positive in his influence. He was a child beater, a pet beater, a wife beater, and a thief. He was a mean drunk. He was too often mean even when cold sober; he admitted it, reveled in it, and thought it was cute. He delighted in his own meanness. He was an arrogant know-it-all. He cheated on every woman he ever dated seriously. He reveled in seducing the wives of other men. He fabricated stories about those he didn't like. He was the most vehemently vocal racist and anti-gay individual I've ever known. He was embarrassingly sexist. He was barely intelligent enough to hold the job of truck driver -- in fact he was often fired even at that. Ralph Neil habitually shunned and openly berated and belittled non-drinkers, including his only biological son, explicitly and specifically because those non-drinkers refused to "convert to alcoholism". If you were a drunk, you might or might not be Ralph's friend. If you were mostly sober, you'd never be his friend. When Ralph Neil passed, I cried my eyes out for a man who did not exist and never had. I'm past that now. I want this man out of my memories, forever. I have no brothers. I have no sisters. I never had a father. I have only worthwhile friends of my own choosing. I'm sorry that the "Neil Fortune", miniscule though it may have been, will not be passed down the bloodline to be nurtured and expanded and invested and appreciated and grown, but will, instead, be blown on Harleys and beer and extramarital affairs. That's clearly what Ralph Neil wanted. So be it. It's done. My advice to all people everywhere is this: take this as a lesson proving that "family" may mean nothing. Instead, learn to carefully, painstakingly CHOOSE those to whom you give your trust and friendship. Never, ever be automatically accepting of people merely because they are "assigned" to you through the happenstance of bloodline. Rather, exercise critical thinking, good judgment, common sense and clear logic to determine in whom to place your devotion, and to whom to give your love. "Family" is no guarantee whatsoever that any given human being will be of any higher grade or quality than a common cockroach. Remember that words between people, no matter how pretty or apparently genuine, mean nothing. What has value is a pattern of actions.. Below is one of several dozen letters written to me by my Mother shortly after the "kidnapping". These letters were kept from me by Ralph through my childhood (when I needed them most), through my adult life, and even beyond his death. Even this one letter would have drastically changed my relationship with my Mother, who I had always thought had abandon me to Ralph. He tried to make sure I never received them by granting me no access to his estate. They were found by my son, only by happenstance, and passed to me after over 50 years. For this despicable, childish deception alone, Ralph Neil did not, and does not ever deserve, the normally-automatic label of HUMAN. Perhaps some day I'll find enough tissue to allow me to read them all. I'm so sorry to have known this man, and I apologize on behalf of the Neil family name to all those whose lives he impacted negatively, to those whose lives he ruined, to those he stole from, to those he tried to steal from, to those whose marriages he single-handedly caused to end, to those he physically beat or tried to beat, to those he tried to bamboozle in over 22 lost court cases, civil suits and trials, to those he lied to and about, and to those he insulted, ridiculed, threatened and mistreated. I am sorry. Some who were given my family name are of a higher caliber. Some are not. . . . UPDATE 10-2009: The 2009 economy has finally caught up to us. My wife's business is down 38% from 2008, which wasn't, in and of itself, a great year anyway. My business is down a staggering 54%. For the first time in our 37-year marriage, we are unable to buy the foods we desire at the local grocery store. Instead, we must buy lesser quality, or complete substitutes. We struggle to pay our bills -- indeed, even our rent. I never did receive the hundred bucks Ralph mandated that Ken should give me from the estate. Yet Ken, as I write, is vacationing in Mexico. I'm sorry, but my respect for Ken is gone. It hasn't yet turned into contempt, but for the first time in my life I realize that it may. Ken has placed Ralph's boat, the 53' Skookum sailboat "SV Spellbound", up for sale. It's an old, relatively undesirable model, with rotten decks, rotten interior structures, a bad engine (blown rear-main seal). It has no electronics except an ancient VHF, no skiff. Ken has virtually ruined the battery banks by running them dead while hosting drunken parties aboard -- he must even call a third party in from 50 miles away to put a battery charger on them BECAUSE KEN IS NOT SMART ENOUGH TO DO IT AND EFFORTS TO TEACH HIM HAVE ALL FAILED. The boat's rough in every conceivable way. Ralph had lined one of the leaking fresh water tanks with epoxy, then failed to let it fully cure before filling it with water. Of course it will NEVER cure now. Henceforth, anyone who drank from that tank became ill, and even washing one's hands from it will leave the hands sticky and itchy. Ralph even speculated that his cancer may have stemmed from a few years of drinking from that tank. Yet Ken had declared that he wasn't going to fix the problem, nor report the problem to any buyer. The market has a number of similar vessels available currently, with complete electronics complements, solid decks, no rot, and numerous perks, in the price range from $159,000 to $179,000. I advised Ken, when he announced he was going to "fire-sale that bitch" to hold out for what he could realistically get, that the boat could be priced at $150,000, with the HOPE of closing at $125,000, but that he should be willing to consider a price as low as $99,000 in order to finally unload the much-abused and poorly maintained Skookum. Skookum hulls are generally regarded as being a "strong" hull (hence the Indian name, which literally means "strong"), but this Skookum hull didn't hold up well when it was pounded by a light boat adrift, which slammed into her amidships and broke all or most of her bulkheads loose of the hull. The offset of this "strong" Skookum hull is that they're known as "slappers" in rough seas. I, personally, don't enjoy a shallow-draft hull which pounds and shudders in a seaway. Ken has priced the Spellbound at about $300,000, and says he'll just wait until the market catches up with his price. In the best-possible market the vessel will never bring more than $160,000. Ken has become Ralph; both the stupidity and the greed irk me. After all these years of loving and respecting Ken Neil, and of knowing in my heart and soul that he was "there" for me and never once questioning that, I am finally reduced to thinking of him using adjectives like greedy, spoiled, and insincere.....and I'm afraid our relationship is irrevocably broken. Apparently it always was, but I was just too stupid to see it. Ken has, as of this late date, never read this page, even though he's been notified of its existence several times by uninvolved parties, including his own attorney. Indeed, he has no reason to read about the feelings of others in the family, because HE is the only one who counts. Do I have any advice for anyone in a similar situation? Not much. I would advise finding some way to assess the relationships in your life. I mean, assess them accurately, which probably means assessing them brutally. I never dreamed that Ken Neil was this type of human being, because I didn't want to see these characteristics in him. I "wanted" a good, moral, loyal brother, so I invented one in my imagination. I would have defended his honor to the death. And I would have been proven a fool of the highest order. Had I somehow been forced to see him for what he is, I could have avoided oceans of heartache. I listened to his ex-wife, Teresa Neil (maiden: "Teresa Neal") lament about Ken for the decade or more that they were married, and I rudely dismissed her and even broke contact with her, because I knew in my heart of hearts that Ken was none of the amoral things she described. Teresa was no prize of morality or honor herself, but I see now that she was telling me the truth. I now must make this open, public apology to her. Apparently I was dead-wrong about her husband. She tried to tell me. I didn't listen. I'm sorry. If you're unable to see a person clearly, or if you're not sure if you're seeing them clearly, seek to understand how others see them. Take all of that input with a grain of salt, but don't completely discount it either. Remain open minded and watchful. There's a very good chance that some, or most, of the people to whom you give your love and/or respect don't deserve a crumb of it. Once you've identified those bottom-feeders, cut loose of them, completely, forever. It will save you wasted energy in the end. I should have gotten Ralph Neil out of my life fifty years ago, no matter what I had to endure to accomplish it. I can now see I should have removed Ken from my life as well. I would advise against adoption. Of the fifty to seventy people (couples) I've known in my life who adopted a child, I know of one (1) case that turned out well. By "well", I mean that the adoptee integrated into the family as completely as a child born to that family and remained loyal throughout their lives. The odds are astronomically against this happening. This case, Ken's case, is a situation in which the entire family fortune amassed by a long line of fathers who came from Scotland, has ended with the entire fortune, modest as it was, being squandered by one adopted drunk who, it turns out, was never, ever actually part of the family -- not biologically, and not in spirit either. If it was legally possible to do so, I'd take him to court and strip him of the family name; it's not in reality his, and I believe he should revert to his biological father's name. That's where he comes from; that's where he belongs. Ironically, Ken was given every single benefit of the doubt and was treated for his entire life as though he WAS born to this family. In the end, however, he takes all he can get and turns up his nose at the actual bloodline. We discover now that Ken has spent every single dime of Ralph's investments (rather than maintain the investments and GROW his gifts, Ken cashed them out quickly, suffering all of the penalties and early withdrawal fees), probably spending the proceeds on booze and motorcycles and the secretaries of work clients he boasts of cheating on his wife with, and he has nothing left with which to pay off one of Ralph's credit cards. That card company is now coming after him for those funds (about twelve grand), but instead of selling Ralph's boat to pay the bill, and instead of selling one of Ralph's race cars to pay the bill (which is all he has left), Ken has hinted to my son exactly six times now that perhaps my son should sell HIS car and pay this bill for Ken. I believe that was probably the straw that broke the camel's back for my son as well. I rack this up to the bizarre illogic that ALWAYS is manifest in the brain of ALL alcoholics. I am anti-drunk, and I'm even more radically anti-DUI. I've put a number of DUIs in jail. I've been hit three times by drunks and I've lost three friends (so far) to drunks. I've had a belly full of them. I turned the other cheek with regard to Ken's nearly constant drunk driving, especially in his company vehicle. I turned a blind eye to the office, medical and dentistry items that he stole from work and which he sold or gave away and which he sometimes offered to me (I refused to accept them). Theft is theft, just like his adoptive father, Ralph was famous for. I wonder where Ken learned it. He has stolen items in his garage at this moment which were stolen from his work for God's sake! I chose to look the other way with regard to this morality that I found reprehensible because Ken was, after all, "my brother". What a fool I have been. It has come to my attention that Ken has been telling people, friends, family, that he has in fact paid me the $100 that Ralph allotted me in the Will. This is not true; it is either an outright lie, or yet another drunken misconception. I surround myself with sober, clear-thinking, honorable, reliable, loyal friends. THIS IS WHY. Ken no longer qualifies in any capacity. I don't know if he ever did. I understand, finally, why Ken had less than no interest in meeting, or even hearing about, his "missing sister", Cheryl Buckland (Cavanaugh). It was because he was not, in his heart, part of the family. Perhaps he thought he was somehow "above" us all. Ken Neil didn't think he was sufficiently PART OF THE FAMILY to express even the smallest, slightest interest in meeting a BRAND NEW SISTER, even when I expressed surprise and pressed the issue a little, yet he thought he was sufficiently "part of the family" to take EVERY SINGLE PENNY this bloodline produced and handed down in four or five generations. Only someone who considers themselves to be "better than" the family that adopted them, could ever perpetrate the kind of betrayal Ken has against me. Enemies of the United States often send "sleeper" agents to this country to plod along and fit in, then turn on the country that nurtured them and do it harm. It almost seems as though families can suffer this same kind of treachery when adopting a child. When it comes right down to it, they have no "real", life and death, blood connection to the family at all -- they were merely boarders passing through, and if an opportunity presents itself, they'll often or usually grab it and to Hell with everyone else. Perhaps it is a matter of bad genes that caused them to be tossed in the proverbial trash by their real families and brought them to the new family, and those bad genes again trump morality and honor when the opportunity to TAKE, arrives and they can't be bothered even to say THANK YOU, but instead say only GOTCHA. One of my best friends in the world is a retired Lutheran minister. I've known him for nearly forty years. He suffered nearly the exact same betrayal early in his life. He admits that, to his chagrin, he HATES the man who stole his family's fortune. He struggles with forgiveness every single day and admits that he has entertained thoughts of doing the man harm. I don't want my sentiment toward Ken to evolve into hatred. He doesn't deserve that much thought or energy from me. But I do want him excised. I want him out of my life as thoroughly as if he were never born. I want him to simply not exist, at least in my consciousness. I want to know nothing more about him, whether he lives or dies, gets caught cheating and is divorced, goes to jail for DUI, gets shot in a bar brawl, gets crippled while riding drunk-- I want there to be nothing except empty space where the memory of Ken Neil used to reside. Perhaps I can fill that space with memories of true friends who deserved and deserve my loyalty and respect. Ken is the last of that entire side of the family that I had maintained contact with. Now that he's gone, the entire bunch is gone, dead to me forever, and the sense of relief is profound. I wish I'd possessed the insight to have done this decades and decades ago. Think of the anguish that could have avoided. The single biggest insult -- and consequently the single biggest heartbreak-- in this entire disgusting fiasco is that not once, not once, since Ralph's death a year and a half ago, has Ken Neil, my supposed "brother", thought I was worth the half-ounce of simple human courtesy required to stand up on his own two hind legs, away from and independent of his sneaky, conniving, conspiring, disgusting, loud, obnoxious, crude, manipulative, drunken, greedy, disingenuous, two-faced (all my "opinion") pig of a wife, Sue Ellen (Bender) Neil, and look me in the eye, and tell me what he intended to do about Ralph's Will. He could have chosen any path with regard to this simple human courtesy-- and he obviously did choose a path. He decided I wasn't worth the effort. Ken Neil was obviously so ashamed of his own decision to conspicuously ignore me and keep EVERYTHING that he couldn't muster the basic guts to even tell me what that decision was. We were, I thought, brothers for life. --But only up until the instant Ken inherited some money. From that moment onward I simply didn't exist. This, to me, demonstrates the lowest-possible character in any human being. In fact, it demonstrates no character at all. It is this peculiar lack of character that Ken complained of in his adopted mother, Barbara Clough/Neil/Brown when she (in Ken's words) screwed him out of any proceeds from Gladys Brown's home, yet now he has become the very person who acts in that manner. This is a character I would not allow in my home; it is a character to whom I would not give the time of day; it is a putrid, backward, dishonorable, cheating, slimy character that I would not bother extending a branch to, were it drowning in a river. It is a character that has no place in my family, my thoughts, my country, my planet. It is this character, to extrapolate a little, which has devolved our nation into the chaos of greed and amorality all good people struggle against today. It is not the character of a brother, a friend, or even an acquaintance. It is the character of the bottom-feeder, the lout, the disloyal, the genetic blank. Did Ralph Neil produce this being? Or is Ken Neil responsible for his own human failure? I don't know for sure, but I suspect the latter. Ken could have woken up (still could), looked around, and decided to pursue a life of honor. Yet it has been, and continues to be, Ken Neil's CONSCIOUS CHOICE, to not. Ken Neil, my "brother", could redeem his character at least by a small degree even now, by standing up, straight and sober, and stating, simply, "I have decided to keep everything your family has worked for since the late 1700's, and I don't care what you think, and that's just the way it is." At least I'd think, then, that he had some balls. At least I'd feel as though I was worthy of being informed. As it stands, I see him as just another bottom-feeding, snake-in-the-grass, sneaky, gutless, alley-drunk. I'm sick of that piss-poor class of human being. The older I get, and the more I see of the problems that drunks and bottom-feeders cause in the world and for the world, the more sick of them I become. I began making efforts even in Ken's childhood to introduce him to the concept of honor. I failed. It would be foolish to hope he would "get it" at this late date. To Thine Own Self be True. Indeed. . Footnote: Ray Brown passed away in mid April, 2010. I considered Ray to be a standup human being, like his father, Carl Brown. I know of nothing in Ray Brown's life that would cause me to not respect him fully. I'm sorry he's gone from this world. I wish I could say the same for Ray's brother, sister and mother. Ray's father, Carl, was a standup human being in all ways at all times. Ken Neil could not be bothered to notify a single person I know. Good one, Ken -- true to form as always. Official obit: Raymond C. Brown 10/20/1936 B 04/12/2010 Ray Brown passed away peacefully in his sleep on April 12th, 2010. Ray was born in Yakima, WA, and has lived in Milton, WA for the past 43 years. Ray also served for 4 years in the US Navy. During his active duty, he received multiple awards and accolades recognizing him for his service during his military career. Ray spent his life working and providing for his family, in Alaska for Crowley Maritime as Operations Manager, Sunnen Crane Service and Bowhead Transportation, finally retiring to his longtime love affair with Harley Davidson motorcycles. This hobby turned into a longtime hobby and business that spanned well over 35 years. Ray has built an extensive reputation, and is well known for his bike building skills and the quality of motorcycles he created. They were often dubbed a "Ray Brown" special, and people were known to have waited in line for one of his creations. Ray is preceded in death by his son Chuck Brown, survived by his wife of 52 years Linda, daughters, Leean Johnson (Robert), Carrie Mabry (Mike), Lorra Shrader (Joe), 10 grandchildren, Jeff, Justin, (Christina), Jenna Johnson, Christopher, Stephen Mabry, Kayla, Chelsea, Samantha Shrader, Jessica Brown, 2 great grandchildren, Skyler, Noah, sister Barbara Clough and brother Doug Brown, both of Washington State and many many friends. Graveside services will be held, on Saturday, April 17th, 2010, at 1:30 PM. The location is Mountain View Memorial Park, 4100 Steilacoom Boulevard SW, Lakewood, WA. Reception will follow in the Willow Room. . UPDATE: 10-22-2010 We are informed that Nancy Carol Wolfe has initiated a lawsuit against Ken Lyle Neil for non-payment of the $15,000 Ralph Barclay Neil left to her in his will. Ken had ample opportunity to pay her from existing proceeds from the estate, of course, but claims he had intended to pay her when the last item (the S/V Spellbound), finally sold. Right. Good luck to Nancy. She'll need it. . UPDATE: 12-4-2010 We are informed that Ken is now asking $80,000 for the Spellbound. He claims to be desperate to sell it, yet it is unrepresented by any brokerage, he refuses to move it to Seattle or San Francisco, and it does not seem to be advertised anywhere. It has never been listed on Craigslist. I'm told that Ken is flat-drunk by about 11 a.m. nearly every day and that any business must be conducted with him before that. Nancy's attorneys are taking legal steps to secure enough of Ken's assets to guarantee her payment. I expect liquidation to begin soon. I am disgusted beyond words that Ken Neil has chosen over and over and over to shirk this sacred responsibility and to try to cheat Nancy of her money. The payment to Nancy should have come from the FIRST of the available funds, not the last, years after the fact. I'm stunned and I cannot imagine myself trusting another human being in this lifetime. . UPDATE: 3-4-2010 The latest development in the "Nancy Fiasco" is this: Nancy's lawyers continued to demand payment from Ken. Ken continued to ignore them. Finally, they set up a lawsuit and gave ken until a certain date to pay or they would file. It was a slam-dunk for the attorneys, of course, as the Will was clear and specific, and Ken had already blown many thousands of dollars from the estate (our estimate is $50,000 cash). Nancy and her attorneys wanted her lousy fifteen grand. No more, no less, but Ken wouldn't budge. We believe he and Sue Ellen drank all the "liquid" assets from the estate. In any case, Ken refused to abide by the due date, so Nancy's attorneys went ahead with the suit. Ken THEN panicked and tried to pay the $15,000, but the attorneys now demanded $18,000. Ken had no choice -- he could continue to stall and go to court, but that would only rack up more attorneys fees, so he grudgingly paid the $18,000. Fact: I cannot remember, in my lifetime, ever stumbling upon a bigger asshole, a scummier lout, a more dishonorable "man" than Ken Lyle Neil. I'm embarrassed for him and by him. I've never seen anything like it in this lifetime. . UPDATE: 3-4-2010 I've taken a hard look at the Spellbound, to try to decide if I wanted it at any price. Ken has indicated he would take $60,000 for it as-is. As-is is an understatement -- the boat is a wreck and since Ken refuses to maintain it, its condition deteriorates every single month. I determined that the boat is worth no more than $35,000. Ken may find a sucker and get more, especially if he fails to disclose all of the boat's problems that he is personally aware of (the engine now shows no oil pressure at all, for instance). But any buyer would almost certainly come back and sue Ken for failure to disclose what he knows about the vessel's problems, once the new owner discovers them. The poisoned tank and subsequent poisoning of the entire water system is a particular concern to me. Ken knows about it. Ken has stated categorically that he doesn't care if anyone gets poisoned from the fresh water system, and he steadfastly refuses to advise anyone of it. Since I will have no knowledge of anyone who ultimately buys the boat, there is no way I can warn them. I do know that Ken has offered a cash reward to anyone who sinks or otherwise destroys the boat so he can claim the insurance (around $300,000). I'm going to paste in a verbatim copy of the line I entered in the previous paragraph: I cannot remember, in my lifetime, ever stumbling upon a bigger asshole, a scummier lout, a more dishonorable "man" than Ken Lyle Neil. I'm embarrassed for him and by him. I've never seen anything like it in this lifetime. I'm truly sorry he shares my family name. . UPDATE: 11-29-2011 Ken has been unable to sell the Spellbound, partly because he refused to maintain it, and partly because he simply wouldn't try in any meaningful way. Several months ago my son approached him and asked Ken if he would like my son to sell it for him. It had been sitting for three years or so without a single nibble. My son wrote up a Craigslist ad which elicited a huge response. One buyer showed up the next morning and put a $5000 deposit on the boat, promising to pay the remainder the following day. The asking price was a quick $50,000. That buyer failed to show the following day and could not be located until several days later, at which time he said he had changed his mind. Ken then sought to collect the $5000 deposit the man had left, but of course Ken had been too Goddamned stupid to cash the man's check, and the man stopped payment on it. Another buyer was waiting in the wings, and offered to put a cash deposit on the boat. Ken told him not to worry about it -- he would accept a handshake. All other buyers were told the boat was sold and no records were kept of their contact points. This second buyer flaked on the deal some time later, but of course hadn't put a deposit on the boat, so Ken was out of luck again. I'm sorry, but Ken Neil is a drunken imbecile and even this easy sale was beyond him. He simply wasn't up to the task. I attribute it to rampant alcoholism, which seems to have fried what few brain cells he may have ever possessed. The man is simply stupid. My son backed off of the deal for many months after that, saying that there was nothing he could do for Ken. He could make the sale, set the deal up, lead the buyer right to Ken's nose, but Ken would screw it up every single time. My son wanted nothing more to do with Ken, the boat, or any sale thereof. Ken was just too damned dumb to try to interact with, he felt, and any interactions with him in any case had to be effected before, say noon, after which Ken was too drunk to converse intelligently. In the days that Ken and I still spoke, Ken would call me about three times per week, on his way home from work in the company van, and by this time he was so drunk that I couldn't understand him and would hang up. What a great representative of his company! But I do well remember the trials and tribulations of trying to interact with Ken after about 12 noon on any day. Months later, when Ken was still whining over the lack of a deal on the boat, my son confronted him and said point-blank that he would sell the Goddamned boat himself for a fee of $5000. Ken RELUCTANTLY agreed. My son sold the boat and collected the money in under one week. Ken had never once placed a Craigslist ad for the boat, not in all of the three plus years it sat rotting under the Eleventh Street bridge in Tacoma. Ken was just plain too dumb to do this. My son collected cash from the buyers and took it to Ken. He took his $5000 fee, then reminded Ken that Ken had for three years promised, in front of witnesses, to pay me 25% of the proceeds of the ESTATE. Of course Ken had never paid me one dollar of any proceeds from the estate; in fact to this day I have not received the $100 my father left me in the will (yes Nancy, me too). But if Ken would simply pay me 25% of the boat alone, my son advised him, then I would forget the rest. Ken refused to honor his word and has as of this date refused to pay me one dollar. My son was honor-bound to give the entire proceeds from the sale to Ken. I have no doubt that Ken will buy another new Harley and drink up the rest. I wish him Godspeed on this mission.. This one act, aside from all the other betrayal, greed, stupidity, dishonor and dishonesty, has shown me once and for all what kind of human being is Ken L. Neil. He is, in my view, the lowest possible creature on earth. He is devoid of even the smallest semblance of honor, decency, logic, morality. He is overcome with stampeding greed and swirling in booze and wallowing in stupidity. The man is a write-off in every sense of the word. I've read fictional accounts of louts like this. I never dreamed I'd meet one in person. I never dreamed that person would be my "brother". I think back on the lifetime in which I not only referred to Ken Neil as my brother, but felt in my heart that he was my true brother. The reality , however, is very different. He was never treated as though he was adopted. But he should have been. He should have been treated with suspicion and wariness and kept at arm's length because, after all, he has proven that he never was a member of the family, but was, instead, just another lousy drunk from the reservation, the same as his biological parents. You can take the kid out of the rez, but you can't take the rez out of the kid. That's what it comes down to in my estimation. Some argue that losers like this are a result of poor upbringing. That may be partially true in this case. But he was doomed from the start, genetically. Ralph Neil chose Ken Neil to be executor of his will. In a sense, he chose well, according to his own sensibilities and bizarre amorality. Ralph was a dumb drunk. Ken is a dumb drunk. May the two enjoy their own special places in Hell, together. Will I sue Ken? I might. Ken may not live long enough for me to have to make that decision. He's fat, pickled in alcoholism, with skyrocketing blood pressure. I hope his end is as miserable for him as he has made life for those around him. What a documented piece of human garbage. My son plans to write Ken a final letter, describing what he thinks of Ken's staggering lack of honor. But honestly, I'm not sure the man can even read. Remember this final thought: The entire work-product of my entire family, my family, over the past 150 years -- every risk they took, every decade of hard work they endured, every battle they won, every struggle they prevailed over, every penny they invested in businesses and their offspring, is now gone, drunk up by one lousy piece of human garbage named Ken Lyle Neil. It's all gone. Every penny of it. Ken dumped all the investments for quick cash -- gone down the gullet -- or sucked up a nostril or shoved up his ass or however these people ingest their poisons these days. He sold everything he could sell for pennies on the dollar because he was too Goddamned lazy to maintain these things to hold their value and too Goddamned stupid to sell them effectively. This is the man responsible for the end of my entire family's fortune. And he's not even one of us. Ken Lyle Neil: Good riddance to your putrid, rotten fucking soul. You are the absolute scum of the earth. To Teresa Neil (Neal), Ken's ex-wife, I say this: I'm sorry. I doubted your assessment of Ken. I was wrong. You were right. I should have taken you out of that environment the moment you asked me to. Your life may have turned out so much better. I am truly sorry. I can never undo that mistake. To Ken's current wife, Sue Ellen Neil: I'm glad Ken has you. You're exactly what he deserves. . NOTE: As of today, 11-25-2011, Ken and wife are unaware of this website. Copies will soon be sent to their bosses and neighbors. In a convoluted way, I can say that I'm glad to finally know who Ken Neil really is, at the core of his soul. I see all of life more clearly as a result. And I finally know that Ken was willing to sell his last remaining family. The price was $12,500. I believe he's too much of a brainless rummy to ever understand what that means, and how it defines him as a human being and a man. I wonder what his price would be for selling his wife, or his wanna-be gang-banger children, or his friends. I suppose Ken would sell out any of them for a crisp, shiny new hundred dollar bill and a six pack of beer. --or maybe just the beer. Within a week of my father's death I knew beyond all doubt that this is how it would turn out with Ken. I knew he would look for any excuse to keep everything, and I knew that if he couldn't find any excuse, he would simply make something up in his own mind. Either way, his goal always was to keep absolutely everything for himself. I have never seen such greed in my life. My son, on the other hand, was convinced that his uncle Ken was a decent and honorable man. The realization that Ken is just another piece of garbage has hit my son hard. There is absolutely no doubt that, had Jim still been alive, Ken would have found a way to fuck him over as well. IT'S WHAT KEN NEIL DOES. . Sent 11-30-2011: Lori Burkhart Isbell  /  Jerry Ritsema Burkhart Dental Supply 2502 S 78th St Tacoma, WA 98409 I’m sick to death of drunk drivers and I’m sick to death of thieves. I’ve been hit three times by drunk drivers; I’ve lost three friends to drunk drivers. One of the reasons I sold my last company was due to theft – both client and employee-based. I’ve “looked the other way” for many years with regard to one of your employees, Ken Lyle Neil, because he was “my brother”, and I had some misguided sense that family is supposed to cover for family. I was wrong. But in any event, Ken is no longer my brother. I’ve posted a public document at the following URL describing my experiences with Ken Neil, including incidents of theft from your company (I know of others) and nearly daily drunk driving using your company vehicle(s). I have personally witnessed Sue Ellen Bender (Ken’s wife) drive drunk on three occasions that I am clear about – and others in which she was merely “probably” drunk, but I have not witnessed her drive your company vehicle(s) drunk, perhaps because she uses her own car for work. If either of these individuals causes an accident or kills a child, you will no longer be in a position to claim you were not aware of the problem. Neither will I have to say to myself, "I should have done more", if or when either of these two sociological prizes kill someone's child while driving drunk. http://www.truth-or-consequences.com/sonsandbrothers/ralph_b_neil.html You can stop Ken. Or I will, with the help of his neighbors and potential victims. Either way this behavior will stop. I’m sorry I allowed it to continue for as long as I did. I acted foolishly and grossly socially irresponsibly. I will now correct those errors. Ken is currently in a mode where he is trying not to drink on weekdays. I have seen this cycle repeated many times over the years. He tries this for awhile, but always reverts back to everyday drinking. I have witnessed Ken Neil arriving home in your van, so drunk that he stumbled out of the vehicle in his driveway and could not walk properly to his door. I have been on the phone with him many times (roughly a dozen) when he admitted he was driving your company van and admitted that he had had too much to drink and that he was having trouble driving. On these occasions he has been severely slurring his words and I have usually hung up on him. I am willing to testify to these allegations in court. I am accustomed to giving testimony in a law enforcement environment and my style is clear and factual. My sentiment regarding drunk drivers has long been publicly posted at the following URL. I maintain a First Amendment attorney on retainer and I have successfully legally stopped Hewlett Packard’s three year and $60,000 attempt to shut down one of my editorial websites, and many other attempts by other entities, so I am not worried about the content of any of my public pages, even when that content berates a Superior Court judge as follows: http://www.truth-or-consequences.com/bad_government/bobbe_bridge/judge_bobbe_bridge.htm CC: Attorney; Tacoma Police; Burkhart Corporate (Denver);  BCC: [signature] 11-30-2011 . . UPDATE: 12-01-2011 Just when we thought we had seen absolutely everything from this piece of human garbage named Ken Neil and that we were through with him forever, he shows us even more of his rancid rectum. On 11-27, my son cut Ken a check for $45,000, which was the proceeds of the sale of the boat, minus $5000 for my son's efforts in selling the boat. Ken was told explicitly and clearly not to cash or deposit the check for a couple of days, as the original deposit had not cleared and wouldn't clear for another few days. Ken agreed and said he understood. But, brainiacs that Ken and his lovely wife are (we call them Hekyll and Jekyll), they then immediately tried to cash the check. This simple instruction, like all others, proved to be utterly beyond the capabilities of their little Briggs and Stratton brains. Of course it bounced. My son was notified of the bounce and along with that notification was an electronic option to stop payment on the check. This whole deal had been bothering my son mightily -- Ken's lies, Ken's dishonor, Ken's greed, almost certainly all exacerbated by his drunken pig of a wife, Sue Ellen Neil. And so in that moment my son decided to go ahead and stop payment, and to cut a new check in the amount of $35,000, which reflects the sale of the boat, less $5000 for my son, less $10,000 for me. This $10,000 amount was less than any amount Ken had ever said he was giving me. Ken agreed to this and told my son, explicitly and specifically, clearly and straightforwardly, that he (Ken) would abide by that and would not pursue the $10,000 in any way. My son then cut Ken a new check for $35,000, and me a check for $10,000, and Ken seemed happy. It was finally over. Several hours later, Ken began texting my son repeatedly in rapid succession, ranting incoherently that he (Ken) had changed his mind AGAIN, and would immediately "come after" my son if he (my son) didn't instantly pay to Ken the $10,000. Ken texted dozens of times, apparently in a drunken stupor, and made countless telephone calls to my son as well, all demanding the same thing. We figure that Ken had simply begun his nightly ritual of boozing, and his wife got home from work about that time and began her own nightly regimen of boozing, and together they decided to change the deal again because, after all, these are two of the most putrid, greedy people I have ever been unfortunate enough to come in contact with in this long and adventuresome life. My son has told them that they made an agreement, and that they will, by God, just ONCE in their miserable drunken lives, abide by ONE GODDAMNED THING that they promise. In response, Ken has given my son until 9 p.m. this evening to send the $10,000 or "something bad will happen". What will he do at 9 p.m. when the money is not forthcoming? He can call no lawyer at 9 p.m., so we assume Ken will travel to my son's house and attempt to injure or kill him. We know that Ken took Ralph's .38 revolver off the boat within minutes of his death (Ralph loved waving it around and acting tough as well), and given Ken Neil's numerous arrests on violence charges, he is the last person on earth who should own a gun. This behavior is what we expect from Ken. We expect that because Ken is nothing if not illogical, and nothing if not violent, and nothing if not an imbecile. Ken fancies himself to be a "Big Bad Biker". I've dealt with a million "Big Bad Bikers" in law enforcement, and I'm sick to death of the punks, as is the entire world. My son is at this moment taking steps to protect himself and his family, and the Tacoma Police department, and the police in my son's jurisdiction, are being notified. Did I say Ken Neil was a lump of human garbage? Yes, I believe I have expressed that sentiment previously. But it's more than that. It is becoming increasingly obvious to many of us that there's a pathology in process here. I think Ken has developed some psychiatric problems and we now consider him to be to some degree mentally handicapped. The illogic of alcoholism is bad enough, but there's something more at work here. Emotionally healthy people simply don't act like Ken. . From: M Ben <mfbmillvalley@gmail.com> RE: Ramification of Embezzlament - Money from the sale of Spellbound Date: December 1, 2011 9:11:33 PM PST Cc: subender@burkhartdental.com Subject: Ramification of Embezzlament - Money from the sale of Spellbound Hi --- I am an attorney and a friend of Ken Neil. I just spoke to Ken Neil. The facts seem to be that the yacht that was just sold was Ken’s property inherited from Ralph’s will. Without a doubt the boat legally was Ken’s, he inherited the legal title to the boat. Your father did not inherit any portion of the yacht. Your father has no legal right to any portion of funds from the sale of the boat. You helped secure the sale of boat for $50,000, and it was agreed that a $5,000 finder’s fee/commission would be paid to you. The remaining $45,000 is Ken’s money. If you do not immediately forward the remaining $45,000 immediately, you will be committing Embezzlement. Embezzlement is a class B Felony. Just so you know, a class B felony is punishable in the state of Washington by up to 14 years in jail and a minimum fine of equal to the amount of the money that you embezzled, or at least $45,000. Ken tells me you do (sic) want to be in the middle of it, but unfortunately you are in the middle of it and you are committing a felony.  In my opinion, there is no doubt a court of law will find you guilty of embezzlement. If convicted you could possibly go to jail,  be fined at least $45,000  and you will permanently have this on your record. As you know, Ken has been paying mooring expenses and all other expenses of about $1,000 for the past 40 months plus many other expenses, so the $45,000 is really just reimbursing Ken for expenses he has incurred. --- this could be the most important decision you ever make in your life, if the money is not immediately forwarded to Ken you be charged with embezzlement. In my opinion, there is no doubt you be found guilty. Your life will be forever changed. The right and legal decision is forward the money immediately to Ken. Mike Bender 415-637-7493 . TO: . From my son to Mike Bender If you are a “friend” of Ken Neil (and a relative of his infamous wife), then you know that Ken Neil is an illogical alcoholic, and that he is a liar. Is this a case of friends being cut from the same cloth? Ken was drunk when he contacted you. Ken is ALWAYS drunk at this time of night. In fact, any time past, say, 2:30 in the afternoon will find Ken Neil and his wife drunk. They have apparently told you that the proceeds of the sale of the Spellbound are $45,000. In point of FACT, if FACTS have any meaning to you, that is patently incorrect. Ken AGREED, willfully, clearly, and explicitly to allow me to split the monies so that the sum of $10,000 went to my father, Ralph Neil’s only son. Ken agreed to this while completely sober, and he agreed to it repeatedly. I can furnish numerous witnesses to the fact that Ken has agreed to this many times over the past three years. Just tell me when to show up in court. I’m happy to bring them all. I’m also more than happy to provide a polygraph which is, of course, not generally admissible in court, but is SURE AS HELL admissible on the Internet, and that’s exactly where I’ll post it. In fact, let’s have Ken take one too. I’ll pay for it on the condition that I am allowed to do whatever I wish with it. I’m telling you flat out: Ken Neil is a liar and I’m sick to effing death of it and him. We believe what has happened this evening is that Ken once again hit the booze, and his obnoxiously greedy, drunken wife arrived home from work and found out that Ken had indeed given the $10,000 (out of an estimated $200,000 – gee, have they paid their taxes on these amounts?) to Ralph’s only son, and she was incensed because her greed knows absolutely no bounds. In this drunken and belligerent and dishonest state, Ken and wife then concocted this story to you. They have lied to you. And you have foolishly made threats to me and against me based on those blatant lies. You apparently made no effort whatsoever to verify the facts because, in all probability, you simply do not care about facts. I can’t remember ever meeting an attorney who did. You have threatened to have me charged with embezzlement, even though no such thing has occurred. I consider THAT to be civilly actionable. You are instructed herewith to cease and desist contacting me for any reason at any time, and any breach of this directive will cause me to file an anti harassment case against you without delay. I will not interact with wanna-be bullies, and people who make threats based on erroneous information. I have found Ken Neil and wife, over the years, to be the most irresponsible, most illogical, most dishonorable and most amoral people I can ever remember dealing with. I agreed to sell the boat for him out of a misguided sense of pity; he was document ably just too damned stupid to effect the sale himself, even though I brought him buyer after buyer after buyer. Even when they repeatedly paid him deposits, Ken was too unspeakably ignorant to complete the sale. Now that I see he is dishonorable on top of being stupid, I want no part of him in my life. Since you do acknowledge that you now represent him, you WILL relay this message to your clients: Neither Ken Neil nor Sue Ellen Bender (Neil) shall EVER contact me again for any reason. They are write-offs in every single category of human existence. Ken Neil has also been contacting one of my friends, Adam Laskey – a man who is NOT one of Ken’s friends, and Adam has expressed his displeasure at such contact. I believe Ken has been asked to stop contacting Adam. I believe Adam will at some point file for an anti-harassment order against Ken. I have sent this matter to my own attorney for her immediate review. Based on her recommendations, I’ll make a decision on Friday, 11-2, whether to pay this sum to Ken, or to place it in a trust account pending a civil suit. I know that YOU are eager for a civil suit, because you know Ken has some cash in his pocket, and you know he’s as gullible as they come, and you know you can convince him to let you file one. Win or lose, YOU get paid. If my attorney advises me to not send the money to Ken that Ken willingly promised to pay to my father, then you may file suit. If you try to have a charge of embezzlement filed against me, I will have you charged with filing a false complaint and I will do my utmost to ruin your career, because I do not like sleazy attorneys who make threats without knowing the facts, nor attorneys who try to bully opponents before they even know what the situation is. Understand that every single detail of this affair, from the moment Ralph Neil passed, through this moment and on into the future, is posted publicly and will continue to be documented. That includes YOUR involvement now, as well. Your client is a drunk. Your clients are drunks. Ken drives his company vehicle drunk nearly every single day. Your client steals from his company. Your client has a long and documented history of violent arrests. Your client is dishonest; he is dishonorable. He’s a piece of human garbage. I’m sorry I did not see it sooner. All that aside, when your client enters into an agreement, he is expected to abide by it. By law he is NOT allowed to enter into an agreement, then four hours later, in a drunken tantrum, change his mind. There may be some slippery legal loophole which absolves your client of this responsibility. My attorney will advise me of that tomorrow. In the meantime, take your threats and shove them up your ass. If your office needs to interact with me again, you will instruct some other member of your team to effect that interaction, and they will do it politely, in a non-threatening manner, with no BS involved.. You, sir, will not contact me again. In profound disgust, {signature} CC: Internet; attorney; Washington BAR BCC: And by the way, learn to spell "Embezzlament". Good freaking grief. . UPDATE: 12-2-2011 Adam Laskey (Seattle Law Enforcement) has now confirmed that he had to threaten Ken Neil with an anti-harassment complaint to make him stop contacting him. What did Ken think he was going to accomplish by drunkenly harassing a man he barely knew and who didn't even like him, a man whom my son hasn't talked to in countless months, and a man who was one of numerous witnesses to Ken Neil promising to give me a cut of the estate? No one will likely ever know. Ken, you're a real piece of work. I am so embarrassed by you that I could vomit. My son was also forced to change his phone number to stop Ken's drunken assaults.   UPDATE: 12-2-2011 Well well well. One of our attorneys has tried to run a profile on this attorney (named Mike Bender -- see above threats), but lo and behold, he's not even an attorney -- at least not in Washington, which is what he needs to be to be representing Washington clients. What a Goddamned piece of human feces. We hadn't even bothered to glance at his phone number before this. I'll find this imbecile later on and post his profile here. I believe I may pay him a visit next time I'm in San Francisco just to tell him face to face what I think of a scumbag who would attempt a stunt as this guy has tonight (Free Speech and all of that). I'm drafting a complaint to the California BAR as well, and although I may be mistaken, I believe it is a crime to practice law in a state in which you're NOT LICENSED. Let's see what my research can dig up on this. I have found Sue Ellen Bender [Neil] (Ken's wife) to be the absolute poorest possible excuse for a human being. Now one of her relatives can join her in that assessment. This appears to me to be a family of snakes. I'll send a copy of this jerk's actions to the appropriate Bay area's prosecutor's office in case they want to take a harder look at this punk as well, and to the California DOJ. I am so sick and tired of these wanna-be bullies. I really am. My specialty in Federal law enforcement (after I was removed from narcotics detail because I couldn't be "nice" to the drug dealers) was political corruption cases. Mike Bender's shenanigan, although not political in nature, is right up my alley. How in God's name can one small planet be home to so many stupid human beings. It's a rhetorical question. UPDATE: 12-2-2011 My attorney has advised my son to keep the $10,000 and send Ken the remaining $35,000, saying the $10,000 is eminently winnable if Ken filed suit. After all, there are four sober, reliable witnesses to Ken's promise to cut me in, and his most recent promise was about 4-6 hours before he got drunk and blew up and changed his mind. But my son has had such a belly full of the stench that is Ken Neil and Sue Ellen Bender that he is sending the entire $45,000 to them. He feels this is the only way to excise both of these human failures from his life forever. It's a case of, "Lay down with dogs, get up with fleas", or, maybe more appropriately, "associate with drunks and liars and the dishonorable, and lose your soul". I can't say that I am unhappy to not have any further reason to ever think about these two again. But I will say that I consider Ken to be mentally deranged (I consider Sue Ellen to be merely evil and stupid). He is documentably violent. And if he were ever to approach me, at my home, in a public place, a restaurant, on the street -- anywhere at all, I would be prepared and willing to use whatever force is necessary to keep him away, and that includes deadly force, and that includes the taking of Ken Neil's life. I would suffer zero remorse from such steps should they ever prove necessary, and I would suffer no sadness whatsoever. Neither would I feel happiness. I would feel only relief that I had survived, and perhaps Ken had not. Complaints about Mike Bender to the California DOJ, the Bay area prosecutor, and the California and Washington BAR just to name a few, are being effected at this moment. It's rare that I see such unprofessional, probably actionable, and certainly sleazy behavior by any attorney, and I've seen just about everything. Is this man really so unspeakably stupid as to think there would be no consequence to his reprehensible stunt? Apparently he really is just that stupid, and do you want a man that stupid as your lawyer? I don't know anyone who would. Here is my son's rationale for allowing Ken and Sue Ellen to yet again screw the family: "Its not about being sued.... I would just let the attorneys have at it. What i have to deal with is those drunks sitting around thinking of ways to make my life miserable. Worrying about his kids stealing my stuff and slashing my tires. Worrying about them following [my girlfriend] and scaring her. All his drunken friends that will offer to come find me. They do things like that to people [I know this to be true as I have witnessed it on countless occasions]. They are drug addict scum. The best and easiest way to get all of them out of my life is to give him the money. If I do that all of this goes away. He and his ilk are drunken drug addicts. The last thing I want in this life is all of them plotting to go after me or [my girlfriend]. I'm not willing to hang out in their layer. Im just slipping out if it. Leaving all of it behind." In other words, in MY words and opinion, Ken Neil and Sue Ellen Bender are merely thugs, to be feared, to be reviled, never, ever to be trusted, and to be kept out of one's life at any and all costs. My son and I agree on that. Ken personally related to me an event regarding Ken's kids as follows (these are the kids, by the way, both of whom were fired from Ken's own employer, Burkhart Dental Supply): They discovered that their real mother, Teresa Neil (Neal), who was living in Arizona at the time, had come into some money -- about $20,000. I think it was an accident settlement which left her partially crippled. Neither of Ken's rotten little punk-ass kids had been speaking to their mother for some time. One of Ken's kids, according to Ken, plotted to pretend to make up to their mother, and then traveled to Arizona to live with her. He convinced her to add his name to her checking account after only a few days. He then withdrew the entire $20,000 and left the state. According to Ken, they all (Ken's kids, Ken, and Sue Ellen) laughed about this coup (I call it theft) for months. What a fine, valuable American family. I don't believe Teresa ever tried to sue or file charges because, most likely, she couldn't. But I also believe she was so weary to the bone by that time, so worn down by Ken and his kids and their putrid behavior and non-existent morality and gang mentality, that she probably just cried herself to sleep a few nights, and then hoped they would just stay away. Again I say to Teresa: I am so, so sorry that I didn't believe you with regard to Ken. I apologize from the bottom of my heart. You turned to me for help and I brushed you off and took "my brother's" side. I am so very sorry. I was so very stupid. I was blinded by the philosophy of "family". I now understand that "family" is only a collection of strangers you were forced to get to know. When they turn out to be bad human beings, you must, you MUST purge them from your life. If it is impossible to purge them without also purging the good ones, then you must purge the good ones as well. Life is too short to spend one bloody minute associating, even indirectly, with the likes of Ken Neil, his ilk, Sue Ellen Bender, her ilk, or any other "family" member even remotely as valueless. If that means you must miss family get togethers, then that's what it means. If it means you must purge the entire family and seek out people of value to be your friends and family, then that's what you must do. This lesson has taken me 60 years to learn. I went back and forth on the issue for decades. Now, thanks to Ken and Sue Ellen, I finally understand that bad people are bad people are bad people and it DOES NOT MATTER if they are "family". Get them out of your life and keep them out, no matter the cost. Do it early, because cancer only spreads and kills. If there is only one social lesson to be gleaned from this entire painful website, then let that one be it. I thank Ken for teaching me that. I will never forget it. UPDATE: 12-2-2011 On this date around 4 p.m. my son has legally notified Ken Neil and Sue Ellen to never contact or approach him within 100 feet again. The consequences of ignoring that would be, I fear, grave. The legal demand is being delivered to Ken and Sue Ellen by registered mail from my attorney. The last conversation my son had with Ken was this, verbatim: Son: Ken, I've been advised by an attorney [my Seattle attorney who defends this website] not to send you the $10,000 that you promised my dad. There are too many witnesses to the fact that you promised it. Ken: [silence] Son: I'm going to send it to you anyway on one condition. Ken: What's that. Son: You people will never contact me or enter into my life in any way forever. I mean never. Ken: Ok. Son: I am sending this now. Ken: This is not how I wanted it to be between us. Son: Goodbye Ken. [End] My son then immediately changed his phone number. Again. There was ZERO question that Ken or Sue Ellen would booze themselves up and start something new. So Ken has not only sold my relationship with him for a few thousand bucks, he has sold his relationship with his nephew for a few thousand bucks too. I submit that Ken would sell his children for a few thousand bucks, or his wife for a few hundred bucks, or any friend he has for a six pack of beer. Once and for all, we see the bottom line, the bedrock, the final documented truth of Ken Neil's soul. How could I have ever been so blind.. For my own feeling, the same demand to be left alone goes for me multiplied by 10,000. I spent years putting people of this caliber in prison where they belonged. Sometimes it took time and diligence to wait them out until they committed an atrocity blatant enough that it could be documented by law to an extent that the system could finally put them away, but people with the moral compass of Ken Neil and Sue Ellen Bender did, in my experience, ALWAYS end up committing something the law could finally use. The question is, do I still have the energy to wait and watch, or do I want to cop out and leave this foul burden behind me so that the rest of the world must be subjected to it and ultimately have to deal with it? In any case, like my son, and like all other honorable humans who have seen first hand what this guy is, I will NOT tolerate the slightest hint of contact in any form from either of these two losers, Ken or Sue Ellen; not directly, not indirectly, not by their friends or relatives impersonating attorneys, not by telepathy or smoke signal or carrier pigeon or any other way, shape or manner. At the slightest HINT that either of these human fuck-ups, Ken Neil or Sue Ellen Bender or their cohorts and conspirators, are trying to cause me, or anyone I know (ANYONE I KNOW) further grief, I'll do what needs to be done and Goddamn the consequences. I'm old. I'm sick from battling years of frostbite damage in the far north, from Caisson's Disease as a result of a commercial diving career, with diabetes.... With the knowledge of being close to the end comes a glorious kind of freedom and liberation from political correctness. I don't have that many years left anyway and you reach a point, beyond which you simply care no more. A few bucks from my blood-family's paltry fortune would have helped with medications insurance doesn't cover, with neuropathy treatments, and with stress reduction. But Ken's boozing and chasing his clients' secretaries (per his own boasts of conquest to me) takes precedence. Of course it does. May Ken Neil die painfully and go to Hell and live in a world populated only by a billion Ken Neils. Evil and skullduggery are rampant in the world. Ken Neil is a major contributor to the general bullshit overload that society staggers under. Is it a decent man's moral responsibility to help stop evil in those situations where he can, and damn the consequences? If he ignores evil, is he complicit in the destruction of society? Is my own sense of morality strong enough to do what is best for society even at my own expense? I know Ken is a wretched, tortured man because he has no clue where lie the borders of right and wrong. He simply has no idea. He is pulled this way and that like the moon tugs at the earth, but mostly he merely goes with the flow, depending on which drunken, amoral, druggie friend has his ear on any particular day or hour (and that includes his wife in my view). The evil and harm and suffering that Ken spews out to the world will (WILL) come back to haunt him. If (when) Ken decides it's time to finally commit suicide, I'd be happy to provide him with access to several bullets (as many as he needs), because he's too fucking stupid to accomplish it with just one and that, I believe, is a fact. I have never hated a human being more, and with the exception of child molesters and serial killers, I honestly do not know of any human being who is less needed or wanted in any decent society. And that's my opinion. Outside of processing the legal and criminal complaints against Sue Ellen's imbecile of a brother, Mike Bender of San Francisco and parts thereabouts, I want to think of Ken Neil and the sloppy, drunken pig that is Sue Ellen Bender, never again in this lifetime. I pray that they are just smart enough to understand how truly and completely I mean that. Let me say that again: I pray that they are just smart enough to understand how truly and completely I mean that. I am begging them to try hard to comprehend how deep and how wide my hatred for them is. I pray to God that they understand that I will not be pushed one more millimeter by them. I will not back up or back down one more time. If they come at me again in any way, shape or form, for any reason, I will stop them. I guarantee neither of them has ever been detested so thoroughly. The Neil's who produced the modest family fortune are rolling in their graves. I swear I can feel the ground tremble from here. And I STILL have not received the $100 left to me in my own father's Will. If nothing else describes the characters of Ken Neil and Sue Ellen Bender, both named jointly as executors of the Will, that one tiny lump of rotting dishonor does it nicely. Will I sue them for it, like Nancy had to do to get her money? No, I WANT them to carry this Karma. They earned it; they deserve it. It is my most sincere dream that the booze or drugs purchased by either of these two genetic blanks with my money will be the doses that stop their hearts or fail their pickled livers. THAT is what I want done with the hundred bucks my father left me, Allah willing. My attorney summed it up succinctly with this quote: "Your brother is a real piece of shit." Except that I don't HAVE a brother. Complaints to the Washington and California BARs, and to various law enforcement agencies re "attorney" Mike Bender, follow (should be prepared and sent (and posted below) by Christmas, 2011):   UPDATE 1-9-2012: We've run into a small snag regarding the processing of our BAR and criminal complaints against "attorney" Michael Bender. The California BAR has been unable to positively identify which Michael Bender to file against. Here is their latest communication to us: State Bar records do show two California attorneys with the name “Michael Bender”: 234019 169152 Unfortunately, without any further information we cannot tell you if either of these members is the individual you are looking for. It appeared to us that the Michael Bender we're seeking has gone to considerable lengths to keep his online presence nearly nil. We've found house rental ads that he has placed on Craigslist and we'll now go through the county assessor's office to obtain the registered taxpayer on those properties. Failing that we'll use our Washington P.I. to trace him. We believe the correct person's middle initial is "F", but the California BAR has NO Michael F. Benders, so either we have the middle initial wrong, or the Mike Bender we're seeking is not even a California attorney either, which would not surprise us in the least. Only when we're 1002% sure we have the correct Michael / Mike Bender will we pursue formal, legal complaints.   UPDATE: 2-4-2012 Snohomish City Police Department City of Snohomish PD 230 Maple Avenue Snohomish, WA 98290 2-4-2012 RE: FORMAL CRIMINAL COMPLAINT We were involved in an estate disagreement in Washington state. We were recently contacted by a man representing himself as “an attorney”. He represented himself as “Mike Bender”. Research on the www genealogy sites indicates that his full name is Michael Francis Bender, relative or possibly brother to one Sue Ellen Bender, a resident of Tacoma Washington, married to Ken Lyle Neil. Since all of the parties are located in Washington state we assumed this “attorney” (Bender) was a Washington state attorney, representing one or more of the parties. The “attorney” made no effort to declare that he was not a Washington state licensed attorney, which he is not, and after tracking him down we are now at a loss as to whether or not he is even a California attorney, per numerous conversations with the California BAR. Perhaps he is not an attorney at all but is merely impersonating one. We do know for sure that he is not a Washington attorney and it seems clear he is trying to represent himself as one at least in Washington, if not California as well. His manner was threatening and about as uninformed as it gets. The email exchange is appended below. Briefly, one “Ken Neil” (well known to Washington Law Enforcement agencies) inherited a sum of money. In front of witnesses he repeatedly promised over several years to pay a portion of that money to his brother. Ken Neil specifically and explicitly agreed to have me deliver the sum of $10,000 to his brother (my Father). I had access to a total of $45,000 of Ken’s money recently because I had just sold a boat for him. Ken agreed repeatedly, clearly, of his own free volition, while sober, that $10,000 of that sum was to go to his brother. I therefore made that arrangement, and also arranged to have the remaining $35,000 sent to Ken immediately. Then, several hours later, once Ken had begun drinking again for the evening (every evening), he drunkenly rescinded that agreement and began hysterically ranting that he wanted his $10,000 back. It was then he invoked the services of his wife’s brother from Mill Valley, California, the infamous Mike (Michael) F. Bender. We believe this man, Bender, has engaged in nothing short of attempted extortion. He threatened to “file a charge” of embezzlement against me. As we all know, attorneys cannot and do not file “charges” of ANYTHING. They can file COMPLAINTS, and it is then up to the appropriate law enforcement agency to INVESTIGATE and then, POSSIBLY forward the complaint on up the line to the PROSECUTOR who will then decide if a CHARGE is to be filed-- or not. The matter at hand at the time was not criminal in nature anyway, and, further, was nothing close to the crime of “embezzlement”. The man, Bender, like his sister, is a flaming idiot. Obviously this man, Mike Bender, has delusions of grandeur – as many, or most, attorneys do. This one, however, disseminated his shortcoming in writing, and that makes him civilly and possibly criminally liable. Mike Bender had demanded the return of a sum of money to his “client” (Ken Neil) (which was not DUE his “client” per OUR attorney’s advice) or he, Bender, would commit an act which he (1) cannot legally commit [i.e. the FILING of a CHARGE] and (2) would cause him to be sued so fast it would make his dizzy head spin, and almost certainly prosecuted for, if he attempted it. Bender says, in writing, that if he or his “client” didn’t receive said sum within a matter of hours, he would cause the other party (me) a great deal of harm. Bender failed to research his clients’ claims; he took their statements when they were almost certainly drunk, and he acted on them in an actionable and probably criminal manner. This is typical of the rampant unprofessionalism and stupidity that we find in many or most bad attorneys today. It is the behavior which fosters profound distrust of the legal profession; it is the exact reason why “lawyer jokes” are so popular. THIS is why attorneys are almost universally hated and reviled, and with good reason. This is all despicable enough, but when we sent this matter to our own Seattle attorney, she discovered that Mike Bender is not even a licensed attorney in Washington, that he may not work on behalf of ANY client in Washington, and that to do so would probably be ruled by the D.A. as “impersonating an attorney”. My father worked such a case in Federal Law enforcement way back in the 1970’s in Colorado. The corrupt politician who was trying to bully his way around the system was charged and was convicted on that exact charge. I believe Washington and California laws are similarly applicable and that Mike Bender is, in all likelihood, guilty of impersonating an attorney in Washington state, where he is NOT allowed to practice law, and possibly in California as well, where we can find no record of him as a licensed attorney (under the name of Michael Francis Bender). We are unable to confirm his license in that state per numerous conversations and data trades with the California BAR. It appears to us that Bender has gone to some considerable lengths to wipe his traces from the Net. We only found his address through Craigslist real estate ads, for instance, and we find ZERO trace of any office or place of business he may maintain. This is a formal complaint against Mike Bender. I’m sick to death of sleazy attorneys, and this email from Bender is the quintessential “sleazy attorney trick”. I won’t stand for it for a microsecond, and I’m betting the local prosecutor(s) won’t either. If, indeed, it turns out that Bender is also not licensed in California, we’ll file complaints with the appropriate police department in that state too (Mill Valley). I consider this man to be guilty of (1) impersonating an attorney, whether only in Washington, or in both California and Washington, and (2) attempted extortion. As of 2-4-2012 I also consider him to be guilty of interstate criminal harassment. Note that in the reply to Bender’s email, appended below, he was instructed in no uncertain terms to cease and desist contacting me. Unfortunately, on 2-4-2012, I received yet another email from this dolt which was blank, but which contained an attachment with the title: “your report 78913”. When we tried to open the file with a .pdf extention it set off alarms from our anti-virus tsr. We believe that this imbecile, Bender, has tried to send us a virus and we consider this an instance of interstate criminal harassment. The virus notwithstanding, he was very bluntly instructed to never, ever contact us again, but it seems he just couldn’t resist one more jab. So be it. I want his Go—amned hide and I don't care how long or through what or how many hoops I must jump to get it. The man is over the damned top. At first we had no idea who Mike Bender was, except that he shared Ken Neil’s wife’s name (Sue Ellen Bender). Eventually we remembered that Ken had often described this guy as the dumbest man on earth. Ken related how he was often called to the M. Bender house (800 miles away) to effect the simplest, dumbest, most elementary of household repairs, and Bender was described by Ken as “a limp-wristed yuppy fool”, among other things. It appears to us that Bender is, after all, perfectly stupid enough to send us a virus and to believe he could somehow explain his way out of it. He is clearly brainless in other ways, so why not in this way too? The entire issue is detailed at the following link; the website there is defended “to the death” by our First Amendment attorney: http://www.truth-or-consequences.com/sonsandbrothers/ralph_b_neil.html We’ve dealt with dishonest, malicious attorneys far too often. Some my father put in jail while in Federal law enforcement. Some I merely put in their place. I’m sick of them, as is the entire world. But I’ve also dealt with BAR associations in several states (a copy of this is going to both the Washington and California BAR Associations) and, honestly, I have come to rename them: “The Lawyer’s Defense League”. Their own wages and rents are paid BY their attorneys and they are loathe to discipline a single one of them until they’ve raped, murdered and robbed, and it’s all caught by twenty seven reporters and eleven nuns with camcorders. BAR Associations will do ANYTHING to protect their own. I've seen it; I've been disgusted by it; we all have. I eagerly look forward to seeing how they handle this case too. Regardless of how the BAR handles its own misfits, I am asking for an investigation by the Snohomish police department and, if possible, I’d like charges to be sent up to the D.A. for prosecution. I will also seek a civil anti-harassment order against Bender in the hope that he will finally WAKE UP and CEASE AND DESIST CONTACTING ME, and stop adding crimes to the list. The money in its entirety was returned to Ken Neil and Sue Ellen Bender some time later on the specific and explicit condition that neither of them or their drunken, druggie, wanna-be biker-gang loser friends or children, contact me or my family again. I did receive a specific and explicit guarantee from them that that instruction and demand would be honored. It was THEN I returned their $10,000, even though my attorney screamed bloody murder for 2 minutes due to that decision. I thought it was worth ten grand to get these miserable, lying, alcoholic gutter-turds out of my life forever. Unfortunately, Mike Bender seems to be still slithering around through the cracks and I by-God want the imbecile stopped. In profound disgust, [signature] [address] CC: Internet post; attorney; Washington State BAR Association 1325 Fourth Ave, Suite 600 Seattle, WA 98101 California BAR Association 180 Howard Street San Francisco, CA 94105 California DOJ P.O. Box 944255 Sacramento, CA 94244-2550 Snohomish City Police Department City of Snohomish PD 230 Maple Avenue Snohomish, WA 98290 BCC: .   -------------------------------------------------------------- Original emails are as follows: From: M Ben mfbmillvalley@gmail.com RE: Ramification of Embezzlament - Money from the sale of Spellbound Date: December 1, 2011 9:11:33 PM PST Cc: subender@burkhartdental.com Subject: Ramification of Embezzlament - Money from the sale of Spellbound   Hi --- I am an attorney and a friend of Ken Neil. I just spoke to Ken Neil. The facts seem to be that the yacht that was just sold was Ken’s property inherited from Ralph’s will. Without a doubt the boat legally was Ken’s, he inherited the legal title to the boat. Your father did not inherit any portion of the yacht. Your father has no legal right to any portion of funds from the sale of the boat. You helped secure the sale of boat for $50,000, and it was agreed that a $5,000 finder’s fee/commission would be paid to you. The remaining $45,000 is Ken’s money. If you do not immediately forward the remaining $45,000 immediately, you will be committing Embezzlement. Embezzlement is a class B Felony. Just so you know, a class B felony is punishable in the state of Washington by up to 14 years in jail and a minimum fine of equal to the amount of the money that you embezzled, or at least $45,000. Ken tells me you do (sic) want to be in the middle of it, but unfortunately you are in the middle of it and you are committing a felony. In my opinion, there is no doubt a court of law will find you guilty of embezzlement. If convicted you could possibly go to jail,  be fined at least $45,000  and you will permanently have this on your record. As you know, Ken has been paying mooring expenses and all other expenses of about $1,000 for the past 40 months plus many other expenses, so the $45,000 is really just reimbursing Ken for expenses he has incurred. --- this could be the most important decision you ever make in your life, if the money is not immediately forwarded to Ken you be charged with embezzlement. In my opinion, there is no doubt you (sic) be found guilty. Your life will be forever changed. The right and legal decision is forward the money immediately to Ken. Mike Bender 415-637-7493   TO: From my son to Mike Bender If you are a “friend” of your client Ken Neil (and a relative of his infamous wife), then you know that Ken Neil is an illogical alcoholic, and that he is a liar. Is this a case of friends being cut from the same cloth? Ken was drunk when he contacted you. Ken is ALWAYS drunk at this time of night. In fact, any time past, say, 2:30 in the afternoon will find Ken Neil and his wife drunk. They have apparently told you that the proceeds of the sale of the Spellbound are $45,000. In point of FACT, if FACTS have any meaning to you, that is patently incorrect. Ken AGREED, willfully, clearly, and explicitly to allow me to split the monies so that the sum of $10,000 went to my father, Ralph Neil’s only son. Ken agreed to this while completely sober, and he agreed to it repeatedly. I can furnish numerous witnesses to the fact that Ken has agreed to this many times over the past three years. Just tell me when to show up in court. I’m happy to bring them all. I’m also more than happy to provide a polygraph which is, of course, not generally admissible in court, but is SURE AS HELL admissible on the Internet, and that’s exactly where I’ll post it. In fact, let’s have Ken take one too. I’ll pay for it on the condition that I am allowed to do whatever I wish with it. I’m telling you flat out: Ken Neil is a liar and I’m sick to effing death of it and him. We believe what has happened this evening is that Ken once again hit the booze, and his obnoxiously greedy, drunken wife, Sue Ellen Bender/Neil, your relative, arrived home from work and found out that Ken had indeed given the $10,000 (out of an estimated $200,000 – gee, have they paid their taxes on these amounts?) to Ralph’s only son, and she was incensed because her greed knows absolutely no bounds. In this drunken and belligerent and dishonest state, Ken and wife then concocted this story to you. They have lied to you. And you have foolishly made threats to me and against me based on those blatant lies. You apparently made no effort whatsoever to verify the facts because, in all probability, you simply do not care about facts. I can’t remember ever meeting an attorney who did. You have threatened to have me charged with embezzlement, even though no such thing has occurred. I consider THAT to be civilly actionable. You are instructed herewith to cease and desist contacting me for any reason at any time, and any breach of this directive will cause me to file an anti harassment case against you without delay. I will not interact with wanna-be bullies, and people who make threats based on erroneous information. I have found Ken Neil and wife, over the years, to be the most irresponsible, most illogical, most dishonorable and most amoral people I can ever remember dealing with. I agreed to sell the boat for him out of a misguided sense of pity; he was document ably just too damned stupid to effect the sale himself, even though I brought him buyer after buyer after buyer. Even when they repeatedly paid him deposits, Ken was too unspeakably ignorant to complete the sale. Now that I see he is dishonorable on top of being stupid, I want no part of him in my life. Since you do acknowledge that you now represent him, you WILL relay this message to your clients: Neither Ken Neil nor Sue Ellen Bender (Neil) shall EVER contact me again for any reason. They are write-offs in every single category of human existence. Ken Neil has also been contacting one of my friends, Adam Laskey – a man who is NOT one of Ken’s friends, and Adam has expressed his displeasure at such contact. I believe Ken has been asked to stop contacting Adam. I believe Adam will at some point file for an anti-harassment order against Ken. I have sent this matter to my own attorney for her immediate review. Based on her recommendations, I’ll make a decision on Friday, 11-2, whether to pay this sum to Ken, or to place it in a trust account pending a civil suit. I know that YOU are eager for a civil suit, because you know Ken has some cash in his pocket, and you know he’s as gullible as they come, and you know you can convince him to let you file one. Win or lose, YOU get paid. If my attorney advises me to not send the money to Ken that Ken willingly promised to pay to my father, then you may file suit. If you try to have a charge of embezzlement filed against me, I will have you charged with filing a false complaint and I will do my utmost to ruin your career, because I do not like sleazy attorneys who make threats without knowing the facts, nor attorneys who try to bully opponents before they even know what the situation is. Understand that every single detail of this affair, from the moment Ralph Neil passed, through this moment and on into the future, is posted publicly and will continue to be documented. That includes YOUR involvement now, as well. Your client is a drunk. Your clients are drunks. Ken drives his company vehicle drunk nearly every single day. Your client steals from his company. Your client has a long and documented history of violent arrests. Your client is dishonest; he is dishonorable. He’s a piece of human garbage. I’m sorry I did not see it sooner. All that aside, when your client enters into an agreement, he is expected to abide by it. By law he is NOT allowed to enter into an agreement, then four hours later, in a drunken tantrum, change his mind. There may be some slippery legal loophole which absolves your client of this responsibility. My attorney will advise me of that tomorrow. In the meantime, take your threats and shove them up your ass. If your office needs to interact with me again, you will instruct some other member of your team to effect that interaction, and they will do it politely, in a non-threatening manner, with no BS involved.. You, sir, will not contact me again. In profound disgust, {signature} CC: Internet; attorney; Washington BAR BCC: And by the way, learn to spell "Embezzlament". Good freaking grief.   Final thoughts, posted 5-30-2012. It's been three years now since Ralph Neil's death and Ken Neil's disgusting schlepping of every cent of the Neil family estate. People ask me how I feel about it since time has passed. I'm glad Ralph did what he did, because it allows me to see him for what he was -- a waste of human flesh. Had Ralph been dissuaded from doing this for some reason, and not followed his heart, I'd always be thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, he had possessed some tiny fleck of redeeming social value. Now I know the truth, and it's true what they say: The truth will set you free. I feel the same way about Ken. He showed everyone what he's truly made of -- greed, stupidity, dishonesty. He's a lying, disgusting, bleary-eyed drunk and absolutely nothing more. Just another write-off in a city (Tacoma) of tens of thousands of that caliber. He has no friends except drunks and dopers and that in itself is poetic justice. I'm sorry only that I didn't see through these people decades before. On some deep subconscious level perhaps I did, but I was blinded by the false hope that "family" was somehow different from regular folks. In reality, family IS regular folks. Every thief, every child molester, every stinking dope-head and lousy drunk is part of SOMEONE's family SOMEWHERE. By exposing themselves as they did, I can now happily say that neither Ralph Neil or his adopted son Ken Neil are part of MY family. I'll CHOOSE my "family" in this life and the next. Maybe I'll be blood-related to some of those choices, or maybe I'll be blood related to NONE of those choices. I'm no longer willing to accept that fate may fill my life with scumbags and losers and there's nothing I can do about it. Advice: If your father is a dirtbag, get him out of your life. If your brother's a dirtbag, get him out of your life. Base your friendships on principles that have value, and choose your friends according to those who have principles. I tried countless times to explain the concept of morality and principle to Ken Neil. I was always perplexed when he seemed to never once grasp even the rudimentary basics of the idea no matter how I struggled to simplify the concept. Now I know: he is simply not capable of it and never was. Look HARD at your relationships. Cull the bad ones like you'd pull and discard a weed. Know that by doing so you're avoiding countless problems and unimaginable heartache. Chosen friends MIGHT screw you over, but when that happens it's YOUR fault, and it's a mistake you can learn from and correct. When you blindly accept the shortcomings of "family" and believe that you're stuck with them, you open yourself to every type and kind of reject human being and it's just plain dumb to consciously leave yourself at the mercy of valueless lumps of unthinking flesh who, merely by the happenstance of "family", are thrust into your life. You have the power, and the responsibility to your own sanity, to thrust them right back out again as soon as you're old enough to do so. 6-9-2012: I thought the family drama was over. I prayed it was over. My son has passed to me, over the past many months, the desire of an aunt, perhaps the truest Matriarch of the entire family, to meet with me and......what? I'm not sure. I was holding a grudge against the aunt for many years because the aunt had once refused to notify me that my grandmother was in a coma and I found out only weeks later when I traveled from out of state to visit the grandmother. The aunt admitted this and eventually expressed her regret at having done it. I reasoned that I ("I") had never, ever done anything so despicable, that I never would in this lifetime or the next, and so reasoned that was cause enough to cut the aunt from my life. And I did. The action of the aunt was bad, to be sure, and I was never privy to her motivation for doing it. But it was just about the only mistake the aunt had ever made to my knowledge, and her bank account in my heart, on the positive side, outweighed this one bad thing by about seven million to one. The rest of the family, which I had disowned one by one over the years, had bank balances of good feelings in my heart that were just about exactly reversed. My son repeatedly passed to me the aunt's requests to get together with me, and her apologies for having purposefully refused to notify me, and I thought about this a great deal, and after many years of "holding out" I realized that even though "I" would never have done what the aunt did, "I" probably had done OTHER things in life that the aunt would never have done. I realized more fully that I was human, that the aunt was human, and despite my wishes and dreams, humans do wrong and stupid things on occasion, and that if I continued along through life, denouncing every human who ever did an occasional stupid thing, I would eventually have to denounce every single human in all of history and all of the future of mankind, and at the very bitter end of this mass denunciation there would be no one left to denounce except myself. It's a pretty basic piece of logic. I'm sorry it took me sixty years to figure it out. But perhaps better late than never. The exceptions I make to this are with people who don't do stupid things occasionally, but who do stupid, evil, hurtful, wrong-headed things as a matter of course and who, I believe, are incapable of learning or of becoming better people (i.e. the druggie, burglarizing ex-sister and all her ilk). In any case, because of this slow-motion epiphany, I came to totally forgive the aunt in every way -- in my heart and in my mind. I was 101% over it, and I felt that I had been far too hard on the aunt for harboring the thoughts against her that I did, and that I had been a pretty foul human being for having refused to see her. In June of 2012 I let it be known that I was sorry for not forgiving the aunt, and that I would be happy to meet with her and talk. I envisioned our talk to be private (I don't interact well with her husband), and I envisioned it to last from, say, three to five hours, and I envisioned the content to be mostly about the family, and what had caused it to so badly fragment over the decades of our lives, and how she felt about it, and what she thought we might all have done differently to have avoided it. I wanted to sit close to her so we could talk quietly and I dreamed that this conversation would be one of the most meaningful of my life. I had a thousand questions for her and I hoped she had some for me, and once and for all I hoped that we would both come away from it with the clearest possible understanding of where we all went wrong, and how, if we were all thrown into the same tub of water in some future lifetime, we could do this thing better. I can't really think of anything more important to me than that particular conversation. Few things, if any things, are closer to my heart than trying to understand what happened to our family and why. After all, what else do any of us have in this life but our relationships? My relationships with the members of the family were OVER, but I wanted to more thoroughly understand WHY they were over, and this aunt was the key to that knowledge. I didn't plan for this conversation to re ignite our relationship. I wanted it to work as an iron, to simply steam out the kinks, so perhaps she and I could finish our lives with the understanding that we both understood. And I hoped we would both find great solace in that understanding, and I believe we would have. I eagerly looked forward to it. It was scheduled to occur on Saturday, 6-9-2012. I anticipated a calm, maybe even beautiful coming together and purging of old bullshit. The bullshit wouldn't have been purged because we had hashed it through. It would have been purged simply by virtue of the fact that we were beyond it and didn't NEED to hash it through. It would have been purged by attrition, merely that other things were far more important, here, at the ends of our lives. My son and I drove toward my aunt's home and began calling to say we were on the way. It had been set up several days prior, I thought. But we were unable to contact her, and finally, as the day came to a close, we simply drove back home. Later in the evening it was revealed that apparently one of the family -- I suspect the drunk, burglarizing sister -- approached the aunt and somehow made her believe that any meeting with her would be painful to her, because I was likely to insult her, maybe even yell at her, and the aunt eventually felt afraid to have me come to see her. The meeting will not now ever occur. I'm sorry the aunt chooses to listen to nonsense from this sister, but she does, she always has, and I must believe she always will. So be it. I'm done. This kind of thing is exactly what I have come to expect from "the family" and especially from that particular sister. I see it as a kind of evil, and that is exactly the word I mean to use. In my view this sister is simply evil, though she seems to fool a lot of people, especially the aunt. This sister knew she was manufacturing a problem where none existed. I have no doubt she's angry at me for detailing just a few of her nasty deeds on this website and that she felt this was some small speck of retribution. I say to Rene: if you don't want people knowing or talking about your bad deeds, don't DO bad deeds. But whatever..... This tenuous link to the aunt was the last remaining thread of hope I had for the family as a whole. Deep inside I was hoping that I was wrong about my decision to completely separate from the family and to purge them from my thoughts. That microscopic ray of light is now extinguished. I give up. Once and for all I give up.   The ex-sister (druggie/drunk/thief) mentioned above has read this text and when she did I'm sure she uttered to herself a barely audible "ka-ching" because, after all, she now knows that she accomplished exactly what she set out to do. God speed that ex-sister to Hell. Had she not even pulled this particular stunt I'd still wish her Godspeed on her trip to Hell for a hundred other underhanded stunts. I should have purged her from my life decades before I did. THAT is the lesson I've learned. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As of June, 2012, I have not received the $100 from Ken Lyle Neil that was left to me in my father's will... And I never will receive it because that is the morality of Ken.     .THIS IS PAGE 2 RETURN TO PAGE 1     The End Or is it? Updated on February 23, 2021 . .. The life and death of Ralph Barclay Neil (Ralph Neil, Ralph B. Neil, Neil, Ralph), and experiences with one of his sons. Ken Neil, Ken l Lyle Neil, Ralph Barclay Neil (Ralph Neil, Ralph B. Neil, Neil, Ralph), Kenneth Lyle Neil, Teresa Neil, Teresa Neal, Bimbo Neil, 53 foot Skookum sailboat, SV Spellbound, Ray (Raymond) Brown, Barbara jo Neil, Barbara Jo Clough, Barbara Jo Brown, Doug Brown, James Neil, Gladys Brown, Carl Brown, Everett Neil, Corrine (Corine) Neil, Russel Neil, Stockholm Syndrome, kidnappers