Austrian Woman Disliked Her Heirs So Much She Destroyed A Million-Dollar Inheritance

Sure, we've all been plenty angry at members of our families before. Angry enough to slam the door, hang up the phone mid-sentence, and say hurtful things that we don't really mean. But angry enough to destroy more than a million dollars of cold, hard cash just to ensure that our "loved" ones don't get their hands on it? That's a little extreme. An 85-year-old Austrian grandmother shredded 950,000 euros (the equivalent of $1.1 million) in an attempt to stop her family from inheriting it, reports AFP. After her death in a Vienna retirement home, the euros, along with their companion savings account books, were found torn to tiny pieces and laid neatly on her bed. But the woman's attempt to slight her heirs may have been in vain, according to Friedrich Hammerschmidt, the deputy head of Austria's central bank’s cashier division, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB). Hammerschmidt has said that the bank will replace the destroyed funds. "In a delicate case like this, however, you have to make a decision depending on the situation,” he explained to the Austrian newspaper the Kurier Daily (as translated by The Telegraph). “If we didn’t pay out the money, then we would be punishing the wrong people.” The fortune has since been given over to a notary and probate proceedings will clarify how the inheritance will be divvied up among the surviving family. Which leaves us with a quick note to self: Call the grandparents.