25/12/2025
Were you aware that Grace wrote several wills?
– I had no idea… Not at all.
Because in 2008, Grace was absolutely clear that her entire inheritance would go to cancer research.
– Could it be that she just changed her mind?
– That’s a good question, but I don’t really think so.
IN THE FIRST YEARS of their acquaintance, Johannessen believes that Grace was “completely clear.” In the last years of her life, Grace suffered from severe dementia, he believes today.
In the fall of 2018, Jan Vincents nevertheless sent a letter to Grace, in which he boasted greatly of her intellect: Not many “are so clear at the top that they can match you.”
– It is striking in this case that everyone who receives money from Grace believes she is healthy, while those who do not receive money say she is demented?
– Yes, that's right, I agree with that.
But what I wrote was intended as a pleasant comment, not a medical statement.
He soon sends VG a text message: I always speak the truth, but when people need encouragement, I must admit that I can compromise a little.
From 2008 until 2019, it was cancer research that Grace wanted to give the majority of her fortune to, but this spring she wrote a new will.
Grace signed one will after another, as if the last will could not make up its mind.
2008-2019 From 2008 to 2019, the Radium Hospital Legacy was the main heir.
April 30, 2019 In April 2019, the cancer case was still to receive most of the inheritance, but Bettina and Marian Heyerdahl were to receive one million kroner each – and Grace's nurse was to receive jewelry and 10 million kroner.
August 22, 2019 In August 2019, the Heyerdahl sisters were completely out of the will.
November 14, 2019 In November 2019, the nurse was supposed to get everything.
IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND how the entire inheritance soon ended up with Bettina and Marian Heyerdahl, you need to know more about their relationship with Grace Hesselberg-Meyer: Their mother was one of Grace's best childhood friends. Every year, Grace therefore went to Italy, where Bettina and Marian lived with their mother and Thor Heyerdahl. She stayed there for several months at a time, and so Grace became friends with all of them.
↑ Thor Heyerdahl with his daughters Bettina and Marian in 1994.
When Bettina and business lawyer Andreas Mellbye had a wedding ceremony in Italy in 1994, Grace was an obvious guest at the party, and then he also became a friend.
In court, Andreas Mellbye says that Grace came to visit their house on Snarøya. Here there is a sea view and a large garden, decorated with sculptures.
In the spring of 2020, Bettina was preoccupied with everything that happened around Grace. Among other things, she was present during Økokrim's interrogation of Grace on May 14, 2020, as a confidant. In this way, Bettina learned that Grace wanted the accused nurse to inherit the Frogner apartment and her jewelry. - In retrospect, it would certainly have been an advantage for everyone that someone other than Bettina was present at the interrogation, says State Prosecutor Anne Glede Allum in Økokrim to VG.
One of the next days, Bettina's husband, Andreas Mellbye also learned that Grace wanted to withdraw her will, he later tells the district court.
- I can't remember exactly when it was said, how it was said and who said it. He contacted the high-profile lawyer Randi Bull, who specializes in inheritance settlements and the creation of wills.
The two lawyers knew each other before: Mellbye's firm occasionally refers clients to Randi Bull's firm when they need assistance with inheritance law.
In addition, the two lawyers have worked together on a high-profile case involving a billionaire, and there is a connection to: For over 30 years, Randi Bull's husband has been a partner in the law firm Wiersholm together with Mellbye.
Both hold the title of Senior Counsel.
Jeppe Normann, former head of the Norwegian Bar Association's disciplinary committee in the Oslo district, has this to say about the relationship between Randi Bull and Andreas Mellbye:
Lawyer – It is inevitable that questions may be raised about the independence and integrity of both lawyers. He has a vested interest, since the inheritance goes to his family.
As a lawyer, you should not suggest others in your own circle of acquaintances, says Normann.
To this, Andreas Mellbye responds in an email: “The statements from Jeppe Normann appear to be based on incorrect and incomplete information and facts.”
MELLBYE CONTACTED lawyer Randi Bull.
According to a later judgment from the Oslo District Court, Bull explained that she was engaged by Grace because she wanted to revoke her will.
After reading the judgment, Randi Bull wrote an email to the judge: “This is not correct. As I explained in my testimony in court, I was asked to assist Grace because she wanted help from a person who could take care of her finances (...)”
The judge replied bluntly: "The court does not enter into a dialogue about the content of the judgment". The inheritance lawyer told the police why she accepted the job of assisting Grace: "The witness says that she initially does not take on such assignments since she does not find it that interesting, but it was because Mellbye and Bettina asked and the witness understood that it was important that someone looked after her".
ON JUNE 2, 2020, Randi Bull went on her first visit to Grace, and now it was less than a day until the inheritance would have new recipients, but who? Just a few weeks earlier, Andreas Mellbye had told the police that Grace had decided that a non-profit foundation would inherit her, including the apartment. He clarified to the police in mid-May that this was the Norwegian Cancer Society, but that was not how it was supposed to be.
When Randi Bull parked outside Grace's nursing home that June day, Bettina was standing outside waiting, according to statements in court.
Bettina then followed Bull into Grace's room. After a two-hour conversation between the two, Bull sent an email to Økokrim in which she wrote that Grace now wanted to revoke all of her previous wills. The next day, Bettina drove from the nursing home towards Solli plass in Oslo Vest, with Grace next to her in the car.
From the driver's seat, Bettina dialed a phone number, and soon Bull and a paralegal came out of an office. Bettina got out of the car, and the two lawyers got in.
For the fourth time in 14 months, Grace was to sign a will. Usually this happens in a law office, but with 96-year-old Grace it happened in a car seat. From there, she gave away everything she owned to Bettina and Marian Heyerdahl.
- It is felt to be highly extraordinary to sign such a significant document under such circumstances, says lawyer Jeppe Normann.
- Especially in light of the testator's age, and that the person driving the car is one of the heirs.
IN COURT, her husband, Andreas Mellbye, is to state that he and his family did not know that Grace ever wrote a new will.
Bettina and Marian Heyerdahl's lawyer says that his clients had nothing to do with the creation of the last will. – The will was handled alone by lawyer Randi Bull and her colleague, Christian Lundin tells VG: – Bettina and Marian did not know that they had been appointed as heirs before Grace Hesselberg-Meyer died. VG has investigated what happened: After Grace had signed the will in the car, lawyer Randi Bull wanted her to sign another document: A so-called power of attorney. On the first page of the document it was stated that Grace had signed a new will that same day:
He writes in an email that lawyer Randi Bull is bound by confidentiality, and that Grace did not tell Bettina what they had done in the car either.
"That is why, as she sees it, a completely distorted picture is presented by VG in terms of the circumstances surrounding the signing of the will."
- But it appears in the power of attorney that Grace had signed a new will that same day. Why does Bettina say that she did not know that Grace signed a new will?
- She was asked to sign a power of attorney because Randi Bull could not sign as a witness to the power of attorney for herself. But she does not remember any details, and in any case she does not remember any will.
Lundin points out that Bettina did not know Randi Bull before they met at the nursing home the day before. The two women today have different explanations for why the will was signed in the car.
Lawyer Randi Bull informs VG that the office was closed due to the corona pandemic, while Bettina's lawyer writes to VG that the agreement was that Grace would come to Randi Bull's office. "... but because she was tired and in a wheelchair, Grace wanted to avoid being carried out of the car and into the wheelchair, and then a lift up to lawyer Bull's office," Lundin writes in an email.
THIS DAY, June 3, 2020, Bettina signed the power of attorney in the front seat of the car. Afterwards, she drove Grace to a new nursing home in Ullern in Oslo. Grace's two nephews went to visit there a few weeks later. In a visiting room, they discovered that her aunt did not remember that she had just signed a new will.
