According to prevailing North Carolina law, the second will would be considered valid if evidence could be produced that it was in Chaffin's handwriting. Chaffin placed the will between two pages from the 27th chapter of Genesis which deals with how the younger brother Jacob supplanted the older brother Esau. This Bible belonged to Chaffin's father, who had been a minister. Chaffin never mentioned his will to anyone and apparently planned to reveal its existence on his deathbed. If this was his plan, it was poorly conceived, as he died as a result of a sudden fall on September 7, 1921. His son Marshall probated the earlier will and none of the family contested it because they had no reason for doing so. The amazing developments which subsequently unfolded were described by James C. Chaffin, one of the other sons:

"In June of 1925,1 began to have very vivid dreams that my father appeared to me at my bedside but made no verbal communication. Some time later... he appeared at my bedside again, dressed as I had often seen him dressed in life, wearing a black overcoat which I knew to be his own. This time my father's spirit spoke to me, he took hold of his overcoat this way and pulled it back and said, 'You will find my will in my overcoat pocket,' and then disappeared.

"The next morning I arose fully convinced that my father's spirit had visited me for the purpose of explaining some mistake. I went to mother's and looked for the overcoat but found that it was gone. Mother stated that he had given the overcoat to my brother John, who lives in Yadkin County about twenty miles northwest of my home. On the sixth of July, which was on the Monday following the events stated in the last paragraph, I went to my brother's home in Yadkin County and found the coat. On examination of the inside pocket I found that the lining had been sewed together. I immediately cut the stitches and found a little roll of paper, tied with a string, which was in my father's handwriting and contained only the following words: 'Read the 27th chapter of Genesis in my daddie's old Bible.'

"At this point I was so convinced that the mystery was to be cleared up that I was unwilling to go to mother's home to examine the old Bible without the presence of a witness, and I induced a neighbor, Thomas Blackwelder, to accompany me; my daughter and Mr. Blackwelder's daughter were also present. Arriving at mother's home, we had a considerable search before we found the old Bible. At last we did find it in the top drawer in an upstairs room. The book was so dilapidated that when we took it out it fell