The motive, authorities said, was seizing control of his fortune.
Her son, Anthony D. Marshall, and Francis X . Morrissey Jr. a lawyer who worked on her estate, are accused of manipulating a demented Mrs. Astor to gain control of her fortune.
Donald Trump's decision to leave his children in control of his fortune during his presidency was already an unusual and eyebrow-raising setup.
At 16, he took his parents - whom Hollywood insiders claim were living out their dreams through him - to court and wrested control of his fortune from them.
But she lost control of her fortune after a scandalous affair, and by the 1950s, the house had started to deteriorate.
Ahead of the Afghan president's departure from office in 2014, family members have been fighting among themselves for control of the fortune they have amassed over the past decade, the New York Times reported this week.
Ever since, Mr. Papadimitriou and the other trustees have been involved in legal wrangling with Mr. Roussel over control of the fortune, and the upbringing of Athina, who has spent almost no time in Greece since her mother died.
In 1987, battling alcoholism, he arrived at Ms. Duke's New Jersey estate, landing a job as her staff manager and right hand, a confidant to whom a childless Ms. Duke would eventually bequeath control of her fortune.
His discovery attracted wide attention after his younger brother, John Hunter, in 1775 embalmed the body of a Mrs. Martin Van Butchell, whose will specified that her husband had control of her fortune only as long as her body remained above ground.
The daughters, Scheryle S. Patigian and Andrea Swanson, sued last year to remove him from control of a fortune, including five public companies, that he had put almost entirely into trusts for them and their two sisters, naming himself as trustee.
