But an obscure court document sheds a different light on family history—and on the campaign by Arthur’s relatives to preserve their image and legacy. It shows that the Purdue family of companies made a nearly $20 million payment to the estate of Arthur Sackler in 1997—two year after OxyContin was approved, and just as the pill was becoming a big seller. As a result, though they do not profit from present-day sales, Arthur’s heirs appear to have benefited at least indirectly from OxyContin.

The 1997 payment to the estate of Arthur Sackler is disclosed in the combined, audited financial statements of Purdue and its associated companies and subsidiaries. Those documents were filed among hundreds of pages of exhibits in the U.S. District Court in Abingdon, Virginia, as part of a 2007 settlement in which a company associated with Purdue and three company executives pleaded guilty to charges that OxyContin was illegally marketed. The company paid $600 million in penalties while admitting it falsely promoted OxyContin as less addictive and less likely to be abused than other pain medications.

Arthur’s heirs include his widow and grandchildren. His children, including Elizabeth, do not inherit because they are not beneficiaries of a trust that was set up as part of a settlement of his estate, according to court records. Jillian receives an income from the trust. Elizabeth’s two children are heirs and would receive bequests upon Jillian’s death. A spokesman for Elizabeth Sackler declined to comment on the Purdue payment.

Janet Wootten, a spokeswoman for Jillian Sackler, acknowledges that, as a result of a “protracted estate negotiation,” payments to Arthur Sackler’s estate “were made over many years through the mid-1990s.” She adds, however, that there is no evidence that the note was paid with OxyContin profits.

“There is no differentiation in these documents of assets, profits, debts, or the like, among the various companies, let alone with regard to a specific pharmaceutical product,” she says. “In fact, nowhere do these documents identify the source of funds used to pay the note (or notes).”

The three Sackler brothers are deceased. Arthur died in 1987, Mortimer in 2010, and Raymond in 2017. The families of Mortimer and Raymond own 100 percent of privately held Purdue Pharma and form the majority of its board.

Purdue declined to answer questions about the note and the 1997 payment. The company pointed to an existing statement that says “recent news coverage has wrongly characterized the relationship” between Arthur and Purdue and that “neither he nor any of his descendants have ever had any involvement or financial stake in” the success of OxyContin.

OxyContin is one of the biggest-selling opioids in the United States, with revenues peaking at $3.1 billion in 2010. Purdue promoted OxyContin by showering doctors with junkets and speaking engagements, according to an investigation by the U.S. General Accounting Office. Since 1999, four years after OxyContin was approved, fatal overdoses related to prescription opioids have skyrocketed fivefold to 17,087 deaths in 2016. Earlier data isn’t available, nor is it known how many of the deaths are linked to OxyContin.