Bone detectives hold key to multi-million dollar fortune

Sean O’Riordan on a man who has every incentive to keep Georgia on his mind.

A TINY sliver of bone could be worth millions of dollars to a man who has campaigned for more than 17 years to prove he is the rightful heir to an American fortune.

Dermot O’Regan’s quest is to prove that he is the closest living heir to a woman whose husband amassed millions of dollars worth of property in the city of Savannah, Georgia.

The Co Cork man has impressed the courts in America with a paper trail of documentation which seems to prove his case.

Now a DNA comparison between the woman he claims is his great-aunt and his own grandfather may finally put the matter beyond all doubt.

Mr O’Regan’s great-aunt, Ellen O’Regan, emigrated from Bandon to America in the late 19th century. At the age of 16 (on October 8, 1898) she married a New York policeman, William Sheehan. According to genealogist Jim Herlihy who researched the case, she raised her age to 25 on the marriage certificate, otherwise she would have required parental consent,

For Sheehan, who was 41, it was his second marriage. His first wife and their only child had died in a TB outbreak. In an effort to make the new union look more compatible he knocked six years off his own age on the marriage certificate.

In 1911 he left the police and worked for a spell on the railroads before moving to Georgia where he invested heavily in property. By the time he died, he was a multi-millionaire who owned a large number of houses and apartments.

The couple had four children, all of whom passed away without marrying or having children of their own. The last, Mary Ellen, died in 1983 and is buried with the rest of the family in Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah.

In January this year, the coroner in Savannah, John Metts, allowed the exhumation of Ellen O’Regan’s body in the light of evidence suggesting Mr O’Regan was her grand-nephew.

The exhumation was supervised by a local DNA specialist, Karen Burns, who took samples from the body. Dr Burns, who is professor of anthropology at the University of Georgia, was also on hand in Cork this morning at the exhumation of the body of Jeremiah O’Regan, Dermot’s grandfather. She will be asked to analyse bone samples from the body and compare them with Ellen O’Regan, who documents claim to show was Jeremiah’s sister.

Mr O’Regan never met, or even knew, any of the family in Savannah. He only realised there might be connect a few years after the death of the last of the line, Mary Ellen.

He now faces an agonising wait to see if DNA links are established. By September, it is expected that Dr Burns will have completed her report but even if it does show an indisputable genetic link, Dermot O’Regan faces yet another battle.

The firm of lawyers in Atlanta who subsequently handled the dispersion of Mary Ellen’s estate have already distributed the vast bulk of it to a number of other beneficiaries.

This opens up the possibility of a very lengthy legal battle. Mr O’Regan may have to take on the Atlanta lawyers and even the State of Georgia if he is to recoup any of the money.

The estate was previously valued, in some quarters, as being worth anywhere up to €160 million.

Mr O’Regan’s solicitor, Colm Murphy, disputes the figure, which is says is way over the top. He also says it is unlikely that any of the recoverable properties would generate Mr O’Regan a significant fortune.

But, if the case of inheritance is proved, then a legal battle for damages could generate several million for the businessman from Ovens.