DNA test would prove claim to €149m

AN Irishman is hoping to claim a €149m fortune by exhuming the body of an American woman who died without an heir apparent.

On May 6, businessman Dermot O’Regan will ask the High Court to allow him exhume the body of Mary Ellen Sheehan, a move which may finally solve a 19-year quest to prove he’s her closest living relative.

If the High Court grants the order, it is believed the US authorities will allow Mr O’Regan to exhume the body and make DNA comparisons to verify his claim to the $160m (€149m) fortune.

Through the help of a leading genealogist he has amassed an impressive case already, but he feels the only way conclusively to prove the link is through DNA tests. Mr O’Regan, who owns O’Regan’s Precast in Ovens, Co Cork, claims he’s a first cousin once removed to Mary Ellen Sheehan, the last of a line of Irish-American property magnates who amassed a fortune in Savannah, Georgia.

Mr O’Regan has spent a small fortune already trying to prove the link: “I’m doing this for my family so that justice is done.”

Mary Ellen Sheehan’s mother, Ellen O’Regan, was born in Bandon and was the sister of Mr O’Regan’s grandfather.

Mary Ellen married a New York policeman, William Sheehan, when she was just 16. “She changed her age on the marriage certificate because otherwise she’d have needed written parental consent,” genealogist Jim Herlihy said. It was her husband’s second marriage and he was 41, but he deducted six years off his age on the marriage certificate to make the union look more compatible. His first wife and child had died during a TB outbreak in New York.

After leaving the police force in 1911, Mr Sheehan worked for a spell on the railways and then moved to Georgia. There he invested heavily in property. He earned a huge fortune and by the time he died he was a multi-millionaire. Their children died leaving Mary Ellen Sheehan with the fortune.

She died in 1983 and is buried in St Bonaventures Cemetery in Savannah along with her husband and four children in copper caskets.

Genealogist Jim Herlihy said he had sifted through thousands of documents in the USA and Britain to prove Mr O’Regan’s case.

The High Court previously recognised Mr O’Regan’s claim to be heir to the fortune. However, he wants to prove it beyond all doubt and if the court grants permission to carry out an exhumation then he will go to the USA armed with the order. It is expected the authorities there won’t stand in his way.