A Melbourne man who bequeathed his multi-million dollar estate to an online partner he had never met in person has been the subject of a remarkable court case, after it was revealed the beneficiary was a complete fiction.
The Illusory Beneficiary and the Will
William Ian Southey, aged 73, passed away on October 11, 2022. Just two months prior, he had created a will naming his ‘partner’, Kyle Stuart Jackson, as the executor and primary beneficiary of his estate. The estate included his Kew home, which later sold for $2.5 million, with the residue left to Jackson. His ex-wife, Kaye Moseley, was left a specific legacy of $100,000.
Mr Southey had been married to Ms Moseley between 1976 and 1989 and they remained close. He later spent four decades in a committed relationship with another man until that partner's death in 2017. In the years that followed, he sought companionship online and, in early 2022, formed a connection with a man he knew only as ‘Jackson’. Associate Judge Caroline Anne Goulden noted in her findings that “the deceased made his will in contemplation of his possible marriage to Mr Jackson, albeit he did not ever meet him in person.”
The Unravelling of a Digital Deception
Following Mr Southey’s death, attempts were made by his ex-wife and solicitors to contact Jackson using an email address the deceased had provided. A person purporting to be Jackson initially engaged, expressing grief and even stepping down as a beneficiary in a cryptic email, stating “I don't want it, I don't deserve it.”
However, communication soon turned bizarre and demanding. In March 2023, the email user declined to administer the estate but insisted on being informed of every step and demanded 15 per cent of the estate's value. They also claimed they would only communicate directly with Ms Moseley. Later, they provided an image of a purported US passport for ‘Kyle Jackson’, with a Pennsylvania address.
The solicitors' suspicions grew. When documentation was sent to the US address, a resident named Jeremy Snyder called to say no one by that name lived there. Over months of sporadic and often angry emails from the ‘Jackson’ account—which cited accidents and made accusations of greed—Ms Moseley’s legal team at KHQ Lawyers, aided by a private investigator in the United States, worked to verify the identity.
Court's Final Verdict on a Non-Existent Person
By July 2024, the investigator concluded the passport was fraudulent and that Kyle Stuart Jackson was not a real person. This led to an application to the Victorian Supreme Court to resolve the handling of the will.
In a ruling handed down in December 2024, Associate Judge Goulden found decisively that the named beneficiary did not exist. “I am satisfied that the person named as Kyle Stuart Jackson does not exist in the manner understood by the deceased, or at all,” the judge stated.
The court ruled that Ms Moseley, who was named as the alternative executor, was entitled to distribute the estate without further regard to Jackson's purported interest. Consequently, the residue of the estate, worth millions, will now be distributed to her in accordance with the will's terms.
