Cash Landing

"When Phil got hurt, he became a 5- or 9-year-old for the rest of his life," Rea says. "She worked three years for him without a dime. She got screwed and that's what motivated the judge" -- he's talking about himself -- "to give her the trust agreement. You can go to the courts for the purpose of establishing the truth, but when there are allegations and more allegations, the people making the money are lawyers. I wanted to help Gaela Hedrick. Gaela is a victim of the judicial system."

Jerry and Dorothy Hedrick, a licensed nurse, were relentless in their efforts to wrest Phil away from Gaela and show that they were more fit to take care of him. Their actions led to the court's appointment of Frances Rove, Jackson County's public administrator, as a limited guardian and conservator of Phil's estate.

The public administrator serves as guardian for hundreds of adult wards -- mostly mentally disabled or elderly persons -- under county supervision. Facing emotional pressure, Gaela says, she resigned her duties as guardian and conservator in December 1996. (Phil's handlers later alleged that Gaela was worried about the embarrassment of being forcibly removed from those duties.)

Just 17 months after the accident settlement was reached, Jerry and Dorothy Hedrick became Phil's closest caregivers.

Phil was moved back to Blue Springs, and Gaela stayed in the Ozarks and continued her relationship with Hacker, but she was getting swept deeper into legal trouble. And she had suicidal urges.

"I came back from court one day and I thought about going to the Taney County Bridge and jumping off," she says. "There was a lot of guilt, and I do have a strong religious background. Adultery is not a part of that. I asked God to forgive me, but Brian had seen me through all those times and the problems with my children. He helped me when I cried over the loss of my husband and sat there when I told him I loved my husband. They tried to make it look like this tawdry thing, like we were screwing all over the place and flaunting ourselves. It's not the kind of people we are."

In the volumes of court documents that have grown out of Phil's accident, Gaela repeatedly tried to defend herself by alleging that Jerry and Dorothy were unsuitable caregivers and interested only in grabbing what money they could from the settlement. She claimed they had coached Phil to turn against her. The winner of Hedrick v. Hedrick, it appeared, was going to be whichever side dug up the most salacious dirt on the other.

Gaela charged that Jerry and Dorothy had abused their privileges by coaxing Phil to sign off on $5,000 wedding gifts for each of their three children, taking expensive vacations with Phil (including an Alaskan cruise), and drawing a $65 an hour salary for taking care of Phil. In each of these cases, the expenditures were court-approved.

"I don't care what (Gaela) has said about me," Dorothy tells Pitch Weekly. "My only concern is about Philip. She has not seen the man in the last four years, so I don't know what credibility she has in any of his story. I have nothing at all to do with money -- nothing. Never will."

But, Gaela wonders, "how can they get $65 an hour and they are part of Phil's family? It doesn't make sense."

In one statement, Gena Hedgpeth testified that in the summer of 1996, while Phil was in the care of Jerry and Dorothy at Phil's Blue Springs house, she discovered Phil living in squalor: soiled clothes left in a pile on the back porch, a reek of urine and feces, pillowcases that were stained yellow where Phil's head had been lying, overflowing trash infested with gnats, and fast-food wrappers strewn all over. "What I found absolutely appalled me," Gena wrote. "It infuriated me that Phil would have to stay in such filth."

Other court documents show that Gaela disapproved of the part-time caregivers Dorothy had hired. Gaela's lawyers wrote a letter to the public administrator's office suggesting that Ronald Bomar, who had a rap sheet for domestic abuse and violence and alcohol-related arrests, should not have been allowed to watch Phil. Gaela says she previously had fired Bomar for work habits that endangered Phil's life. And a statement by Tamara Rogers, who worked as one of Phil's personal care attendants, seemed to support Gaela's claim that Jerry and Dorothy Hedrick were preoccupied with Phil's millions.

Rogers said she witnessed an emotional conversation between Phil and Dorothy at the Blue Springs home in June of 1996: "I'm not sure what led up to the conversation about the will, but I do remember Dorothy telling Phil that she could not believe how little he had left to Jerry and that she found it hard to believe that he (Phil) wanted to leave more money to Gaela's kids than to Jerry and their children. While Dorothy was talking about the will, she got very close to Phil and was pointing her finger at his face."