The Missouri appeals court in Kansas City said Tuesday that a Lee's Summit lawyer - charged with murdering her father and his girlfriend near Sunrise Beach nearly four years ago - can be held in the Clay County Jail until she repays at least part of her father's estate.
Susan Elizabeth Van Note, now 47, had been named the personal representative of her father's Missouri estate in February 2011, about four months after William Van Note, 67, died at a Columbia hospital.
The appeals court noted in its eight-page opinion that, as the estate's personal representative, Van Note had "made numerous distributions of property to herself including real property, personal property, and cash," and then she had "sold several of the pieces of real property she had distributed to herself during (that) time."
Some court records valued William Van Note's estate to be at least $1.6 million.
But Susan Van Note's powers as personal representative were suspended on Sept. 17, 2012, after she was charged with her father's murder - and, ultimately, David Holdsworth was named to replace her.
On Nov. 28, 2012, Holdsworth filed a petition in Clay County, seeking an order for Susan Van Note to return the estate property she had distributed to herself.
On May 1, 2013, Clay County's probate court ordered Van Note to return that property by June 3, 2013.
Holdsworth filed a motion for contempt on June 11, 2013. The Bar Plan Surety and Fidelity Company, which had posted a surety bond in the estate on Van Note's behalf in February 2011, filed a similar contempt motion on Nov. 20, 2013.
The probate court held two hearings on the contempt motions - on July 1 and Dec. 12, 2013.
"Between the two hearings, the probate court received evidence from Van Note in which (she) admitted owing a return of cash assets belonging to the estate in the amount of $272,613.01," the appeals court opinion reported.
But she claimed she could not return estate's the cash assets because she had used them "for her personal need of posting a $1 million cash bond in the criminal case pending against her for the alleged murder of Father," the appeals court wrote.
However, the probate court also received evidence "that Van Note's $1 million cash bond was released and replaced with a $250,000 criminal bond requirement" after the probate court's May 1 order, so it found her in contempt on July 10, 2013, "for failing to comply with the court's May 1 order without reasonable or lawful excuse," and that her failure to comply was "direct, willful and deliberate" because Van Note was "financially able to make all required monetary payments under the Order."
After the December hearing, the court ordered Van Note "into the custody of the Clay County Sheriff until she partially purges herself of contempt by returning and delivering $272,613.01" to Holdsworth. If she didn't make the payment by 10 a.m. Dec. 17, 2013, Van Note was ordered "to report to the Clay County Sheriff's Department for incarceration until the contempt is purged."
She appealed, arguing the probate court had "no substantial evidence to support the underlying contempt order."
But, Presiding Judge Mark D. Pfeiffer wrote for the three-judge panel, "Van Note's underlying contentions are simply refuted by the record in this case."
Until the contempt order, Van Note had been free from jail on bond, but facing two first-degree murder charges in Camden County.
In March 2014, she won a change of venue to Laclede County, and a change of judge as well.
Her trial is set to begin next February.
One murder charge alleges she shot and stabbed her father's longtime companion, Sharon Dickson, 59, on the first weekend in October 2010.
Her father - a retired but successful accountant and owner of multiple properties - also was shot in that attack, but survived and was taken to University Hospital, Columbia.
On Oct. 6, 2010, officials said, Van Note showed hospital officials a durable power of attorney document giving her the authority to make her father's health care decisions - and, she said, he preferred death to being kept alive by medical intervention.
The life support was withdrawn, and he died.
Boone County prosecutors later charged Van Note with forgery for that document, and with first-degree murder.
Eventually, those charges were dropped in Boone County but filed in Camden County, along with the murder charge for Dickson's death.