Detective Comics #27 Involved in Murder Case As Convoluted as Any Pulp Mystery

Looking for a copy of Detective Comics #27? Well, you may be in luck, as long as you’re okay with the particularly fraught and convoluted origin of this particular copy. The copy was in the possession of the late Ben Novack Jr., whose widow has been charged with the murder of him and his mother in order to get at his inheritance, and of attempting to frame her own daughter for the crime.

Copies of Detective #27 have famously hit the $1 million mark, and if Novack’s issue is to go on sale, we can only imagine that the story behind it would make it an even hotter commodity. There’s only a chance that the proceeds from it would go towards the ex-Mrs. Novack. Her daughter (Novack’s step-daughter), a woman by the name of May Abad, is currently overseeing Novack’s estate until the results of the trial.

Under her stepfather’s will, Abad’s mother was the sole heir to the estate and would inherit the collection, which Abad said her mother hated. But Narcy Novack, jailed in Westchester, N.Y., has no access at this time to the couple’s joint possessions or to Ben’s effects. By law, if ultimately she is convicted of killing him, she cannot inherit anything from his will. Next in line: Abad’s two sons, 18 and 19. He considered them his grandchildren.

Not much can be done with Novack’s estate until it Narcy’s guilt or innocence has been determined, and so the courts have decided that it would be more cost effective for the estate to begin to liquidate some of Novack’s collection, rather than to continue to pay to store it. May Abad, who has fond memories of convention going with her Batman-fan of a step-father, is attempting to find storage and insurance for the massive group of books before the courts take over.

(via Comics Beat.)

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