Songwriter's kids, evangelist sister battle over death

The children say their aunt discouraged their father from seeking medical care for cancer.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- The children of a hit country music songwriter won't get control of his estate, a judge ruled, but a bigger battle looms between them and their aunt, an evangelist with a worldwide ministry.
Darrell "Wayne" Perry's four children have sued their aunt the Rev. Darlene Bishop, saying she hastened her brother's death by promising to use prayer to cure the throat cancer that killed him and discouraged him from receiving medical treatment.
Separately, a judge on Monday rejected their request to remove their aunt as executor of the estate and replace her with one of Perry's sons.
Wayne Perry's songs include Tim McGraw's "Not a Moment Too Soon," Toby Keith's "A Woman's Touch" and Lorrie Morgan's hit, "What Part Of No."
Perry's heirs alleged that the Rev. Ms. Bishop took money intended for them, including payment from a 260,000 insurance policy, and refused to disburse Perry's assets to them as he had intended.
Ruling against children
Butler County Probate Judge Randy Rogers ruled Monday that the children failed to prove their claim, and he found no grounds for removing Ms. Bishop, who is co-pastor of the Solid Rock megachurch just north of Cincinnati.
He ruled that the insurance policy named Ms. Bishop as the sole beneficiary. Perry's children had argued that their father bought the policy intending the money to go to them, but Judge Rogers ruled that the policy was not part of the estate or the trust.
"The executrix has made errors during the administration of this estate, but those errors have either already been corrected or can be corrected within a reasonable time period," Judge Rogers wrote in his decision.
"I'm madder than fire," Bryan Perry, the songwriter's oldest son and the title plaintiff in the probate challenge and the accompanying wrongful death lawsuit, said of the ruling. "The evidence we had was completely overwhelming."
He said the judge's decision would be appealed.
"This is not fair," he said. "We're all floored."
Ms. Bishop, whose church is known for its 60-foot statue of Jesus, said despite her brother's success, he had nothing left when he died of throat cancer in 2005 at age 55.
"Wayne lived very large. He bought every toy you could buy -- four wheelers, jet skies -- but he hadn't had a hit song for five years," Ms. Bishop said. "He died broke; he had borrowed against his royalties."
She said his children's estimate of the value of his unpublished songs -- maybe 1 million -- was way off base.
"He wrote hundreds of songs, but they're not worth the paper they're wrote on unless somebody records them," Ms. Bishop said.
Moved in with sister
Perry had moved from Nashville, Tenn., to Monroe, about 25 miles north of Cincinnati, to live with his sister in 2003, after learning he had cancer. According to Ms. Bishop's Web site, her weekly half-hour TV program "Sisters" is seen on Christian networks in more than 200 countries.
Perry's children alleged that Ms. Bishop told their father that she cured herself of breast cancer through prayer and that she could cure his cancer the same way.
"It's been a sad thing," Ms. Bishop said of the family feud. "The bottom line is, the truth came out."
The issue of prayer therapy was not addressed as part of the probate battle, but will be the focus of an upcoming battle in court.
Ms. Bishop said she had trouble during the course of the lawsuit following her lawyers' advice to be silent. On Wednesday, she proclaimed her innocence.
"I've never taken a dime," she said. "All I want to do is what's right. I'm a giver, not a taker. It's so sad when people think wrong of you, and you know your heart's right before God."
Perry's children are seeking unspecified damages from Ms. Bishop in a wrongful death suit pending in Butler County Common Pleas Court.