Judge won't allow dead man to divorce

Judge won't allow dead man to divorce

Associated Press
Jul. 26, 2006 12:05 PM

PITTSBURGH - A judge refused to issue a posthumous divorce decree to a dentist who was murdered the day before he was to sign the last of his divorce papers.

Dr. John Yelenic, 39, was found murdered in his Blairsville home on April 13, a crime that has not been solved. Yelenic and his wife, Michele, separated in 2002 and had agreed to the divorce and a property settlement.

Yelenic's attorney, Effie Alexander, asked a judge to issue the divorce decree because he believed the divorce was important to Yelenic.

The request was mostly symbolic, because the couple had already decided how to split up their property. Attorneys for Yelenic's wife and his estate agreed not to contest Alexander's request because it was largely a matter of principle that would not affect that property settlement.

But Indiana County Judge Carol Hanna ruled Wednesday that Yelenic's marriage ended with his murder, even if all parties agreed to a legal decree stating otherwise.

"What the Court cannot do is alter the fact that this marriage ended tragically by death," the judge wrote.

Hanna cited a 1927 Pennsylvania ruling that says, "Marriage is the union of two lives which can be dissolved either by death or by process of law ... you cannot untie a knot which has already been untied."

Although Yelenic signed a request to enter the divorce decree, he had not signed the final paperwork before he died.

The Yelenics had been going through what is known as a two-part divorce - one in which the divorce decree is issued separately from a property settlement. Hanna approved the Yelenics' property settlement earlier this year because the couple had been separated for more than two years - which is by itself grounds for divorce in Pennsylvania - and because Yelenic had asked for a decree.