Jim Daniel’s three daughters lost their father and inheritance to the lady next door.

After Daniel’s release from a hospital stay for dementia, his neighbour Colette Pypers married him in a wedding kept secret from his children. In Ontario, marriage revokes an existing will. The daughters eventually received $1,000 each, though they believe their father’s estate was worth $200,000 or more.

Daniel, who died the year after the wedding, was buried in a prepaid plot in London, Ont., beside his first wife, Lois, the mother of his girls. His daughters and the extended family were not invited to the funeral, nor were they mentioned in the obituary Pypers’ family posted in the local newspaper.

“The last year of Dad’s life was devastating,” said Daniel’s youngest child, Denise Marsh, 51. “This was our father. For all of our lives he was our sounding board, our protector. We couldn’t even say goodbye to him.”

Marsh and her sisters, Teresa Schlosser, 65, and Susan Daniel, 66, believe Pypers inherited the bulk of his estate.

In his will, Daniel had split his estate evenly among his daughters. In that document, he gave Pypers, who he then referred to as “my friend,” $2,000, a gold signet ring and a family Bible. Daughter Susan Daniel said Pypers later offered to sell them items from their childhood home, including the Bible.

The Star tried to interview Pypers. She now has dementia. Her son-in-law, Al Boulianne, initially agreed to an interview, saying “there’s a whole other side to this story.” He didn’t call back. Later, when a Star reporter approached him at the house he shares with his wife and Pypers, he slammed the door and peered out the window with binoculars. They still live next to Daniel’s old home.

As his daughters describe him, Daniel had a wry humour and a Cary Grant charm. He was a self-made man who left school after Grade 9, joined the military underage and later spent 43 years working for Canadian Pacific Rail. He married and raised his family in a brick bungalow in London’s east side.

After his wife died of cancer in 1997, Daniel dated several women. Pypers, his next-door neighbour who was nearly 12 years his junior, was one of them.

In the summer of 2010, the 85-year-old introduced his family to a new lady friend, whose son worked with one of his daughters. He met her family and when his daughters worried he was dating two women at once, he told them his relationship with Pypers was over.

That summer, Daniel started having odd moments, which his daughters later realized was the onset of dementia. He became obsessed with the thought that Marsh, his youngest daughter, stole butter from his home during her workday lunch break. He hid knives throughout his house for protection. He started getting angry for no reason.

There were good days and bad days. In the fall of 2010, Susan got a call from Pypers who said she found Daniel lying on his bedroom floor and couldn’t pick him up. Susan drove over and called an ambulance to take her father to the London Health Sciences Centre, where he was admitted for treatment.

Much of what happened over the next two years is contained in a huge legal file, with arguments back and forth between the sisters and their father. The legal action began on April 2011, after the sisters became worried they were losing their father to Pypers. They filed a court motion requesting he be assessed on numerous points, including his ability to make financial and personal decisions.

In their court application, the sisters questioned Pypers’ influence over their father, saying they had “concerns about the motives and intentions of Ms. Pypers and her family.” Also included in the file are medical and psychiatric reports.

In the fall of 2010, two hospital psychiatrists separately diagnosed Daniel with Alzheimer’s disease, saying he couldn’t make long-term care decisions or manage his finances. His money management skills were described as “very elusive and superficial.” He struggled to subtract seven from 100. Daniel was kept in hospital.

According to hospital records, Pypers frequently visited Daniel in his room. As daughter Marsh recalls, she and her sisters at first accepted Pypers’ return to their father’s life because their father described her as a friend. It was during his hospital stay that acrimony developed between the sisters and Pypers. The sisters worried Pypers was jockeying for control, trying to alienate him from his family.

When the psychiatrists’ reports stated that Daniel was not able to care for himself at home, his daughters agreed. The best place for their father, they said, was a place where he could have significant help with his daily needs. That angered Daniel. His daughters recall how their father believed they were conniving to keep him in hospital and worried they wanted to take his money. When they discussed nursing home care, Daniel grew angrier.

“We were trying to deal with everything at once — the dementia, the hospital stay — it was overwhelming,” Schlosser said. “We just wanted what was best for him.”

As their father grappled with dementia, he was harsh with his daughters during visits. Schlosser later wrote and told her father, “We did not shirk our responsibility and duty to you.”

According to written notes in his hospital records, Pypers wanted Daniel’s daughters replaced as his legal power of attorney, which gives control over personal and financial affairs.

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It was clear Daniel wanted to go home. He tried to leave the hospital three times. The decision to keep him went to a hearing at the provincial Consent and Capacity Board, which agreed with the psychiatrists’ opinions. The board found “no evidence to suggest that JD’s daughters had some ulterior motive for wanting their father declared incapable.”

A January 2011 hospital report detailed staff concerns about Pypers and her son-in-law under the title “Suspicious social issues regarding the behaviour of neighbours.” The report states that Pypers’ visits were so frequent that staff had to limit them to just two hours a day. Nurses reported that her son-in-law, Boulianne, was “visiting and agitating” Daniel.

According to the report, filed as a court exhibit, Pypers repeatedly told staff she was in a common-law relationship with Daniel, when his daughters said the two lived separately.

The hospital ethicist, according to the report, said Boulianne telephoned him eight times over a short period saying his “mother’s partner” wanted to challenge the power of attorney. Nurses “witnessed Pypers having a copy of a POA and witnessed her trying to have Mr. Daniel sign something.”

Daniel stayed in the hospital for four months. After his discharge, he moved in with his eldest daughter, Susan. She said he was happy, and laughing about memories from early years.

In legal documents, the lawyer who was representing Daniel reported that his client was “isolated and miserable” during the same period. His driver’s licence had been suspended and he was living in the town of Springfield, about 40 kilometres outside of London, without transportation.

The lawyer, Diane Ewer, said she expressed concern about “unlawful detention” after Susan refused to drive her father to a meeting at Ewer’s London law office without a promise her power of attorney wouldn’t be revoked and he’d return to Susan’s home. Ewer told the Star she could not talk about the case due to client privilege.

According to daughter Marsh’s affidavit in the court proceeding, Ewer said Daniel requested an appointment with her. Ewer said she acted on his instructions and on March 25, 2011, removed Daniel’s daughters as his power of attorney. Pypers replaced them, according to court documents. He moved into Pypers’ home. On April 5, Pypers and Daniel got married.

Daniel’s daughters learned about the wedding by an email sent to their lawyer. They didn’t believe their father understood what he was doing and requested a “mental capacity” assessment. Each side chose an assessor and both, after meeting with him, said he was competent to marry. One assessor did note that Daniel had no idea his will would be revoked upon marriage.

Marsh and her sisters were stunned. During four months in hospital, two psychiatrists diagnosed him with dementia, nurses’ notes documented numerous related problems and a board ruling upheld the involuntary stay. Now, a few months later, the assessors said he was fine.

Daniel’s daughters gave up and withdrew their challenge to regain control over their father’s affairs. Their legal bills reached $30,000. They filed a motion to have their father cover a portion, saying they took legal action to protect him. The judge agreed. He awarded them $12,000.

And that was the end. The girls that Daniel loved, the grandchildren he held, never saw him again.