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Friends remembered Wilma Williams as fiercely independent, but a stroke left her in a wheelchair and reliant on hearing aides as large as headphones the day her attorney arrived with a plan to divvy up her $1.7 million estate.

The 93-year-old military widow with no children had nieces and nephews, but Bob Machen personally drafted a will that made himself her primary beneficiary and his son — a man she had never met — a possible heir as well.

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Machen said the will represented the wishes of a woman who was like a sister to him and who he helped for years. He claims he watched as she affixed a scribbled signature to the document in a Fairfax County rehabilitation center on July 31, 2018.

Williams died 10 days later, and her relatives said they were stunned to eventually learn that Machen was poised to reap a $1.5 million windfall while they would receive modest bequests. They couldn’t believe the will truly represented Williams’s desires and decided to challenge it in court.

They say the case is a particularly brazen example of the financial exploitation of the elderly, a problem that is rapidly increasing as the senior population grows. The number of people aged 65 and older is projected to double between 2018 and 2060, according to government figures. Various estimates put their losses from fraud between $2.9 billion and a staggering $36.5 billion each year.  

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