Michael Nesmith’s children fail to find the will they thought he created ahead of court decision.

Michael Nesmith’s four children searched everywhere they could think of for what they thought had to be their famous father’s original will created in 1994, but it could not be found. They searched the Monkees’ band member’s Carmel Valley home where he died on Dec. 10, 2021 at the age of 78, and his Video Ranch offices in Sand City, to no avail, according to their attorney, Jonathan Wolf, in court documents.

A subpoena of the Los Angeles law firm where they believe the 1994 will was created similarly turned up nothing. In the document submitted ahead of a hearing in Monterey County Superior Court on May 4, Wolf said the will could be in two other places and told Judge Julie Culver the search would continue. Executor Howard Leitner says he doesn’t know where it might be. “Everybody is trying to do what they can to look for it,” he says.

The only will in the court’s hands is a one-page handwritten will Nesmith created on July 8, 2014, naming Leitner as executor and leaving everything to the Gihon Foundation, created by his mother, Bette Nesmith Graham, in 1977.Over the years Nesmith used the foundation’s funds to keep the innovative online performance space called Video Ranch 3D in operation, among other projects. The four children serve as the foundation’s board members.

On May 4, Culver admitted the handwritten will into probate at the request of Nesmith’s children.

Cynthia Davis was originally a special administrator of the estate who served before Leitner. She estimated the value of Nesmith’s estate at around $3.6 million, but the children argued in court documents that it was really $1.95 million, because in a trust Nesmith set up in 1994 he left all of his personal belongings to his then-wife Victoria Kennedy. At the hearing, Culver set a probate bond at $1.95 million, which protects the assets should the estate be mismanaged in any way. A final hearing is scheduled in Superior Court in Monterey at 9am on June 7, 2023.