About the Life, Death, and Estate of Sheila Spencer Provost, known as ‘Shayla’…

Photo: Michael Bailey, U.S. Senator Dan Akaka, and Sheila Spencer Provost December 2015

Sheila Spencer Provost, known as “Sheila” to her friends, was born into a
financially affluent family on December 2, 1942. Throughout her colorful life, she
was generous with her wealth and used it to influence and support worthy causes
– often involving the protection and care of animals and nature.

Sheila enjoyed a philosophy, and what many friends view as a gift, of enjoying
communications special ways with animals of all forms, and living nature in its
entirety

In 1998, Sheila purchased her ‘Lion’s Leap’ property in the exclusive North Shore
Oahu community of Sunset Hills, a one-hour drive from Honolulu. The $2 million
dollar property and buildings boast a magnificent ocean view of the world-famous
surf site, Pipeline. Sheila’s inner circle knew she intended Lion’s Leap to become
an animal sanctuary for her existing animals, and dedicated to the study of
interspecies communication and communion.

When Sheila died on April 17, 2020, a menagerie of animals lived there -- 60
cats, two miniature Welsh ponies, a flock of ducks, a Monarch butterfly nursery,
and a horde of wild pigs.

According to Sheila’s 1991 Last Will and Testament, her entire estate, including
Lion’s Leap would pass to a single beneficiary upon her death – All Our Children
Together, Inc. -- a Hawaii non-profit organization that Sheila co-founded in 1989.

Hawaii attorney, Mr. Leslie Iczkovitz, had been helping Sheila with legal, real
estate, and landlord-tenant work since 2017. Sheila considered him a good friend.

Prior to her death, Sheila granted her Power of Attorney to Mr. Iczkovitz
so he could help with her medical care and manage her estate properties
Lion’s Leap is one of two properties that Sheila still owned in 2019. The other is
Las Lomas Ranch Estates, a 90-acre ranch on the outskirts of Tucson,
Arizona is also valued in excess of $2 million dollars.

When Sheila’s grandmother, Margaret Fulton Spencer, purchased the Las Lomas
Ranch property in 1938 was 90 acres of desert land. She designed and built a
rambling group of 16 buildings using locally gathered shaped stone. Most
were one-story cottages designed to blend with the landscape, but there were a
few two-story towers as well The entire group of structures showing showed the
influence of ‘Tunisian vernacular architecture’ that she had particularly admired
during earlier travels in Africa.

Margaret Spencer managed Las Lomas as a vacation getaway ‘dude
ranch.’ The cottages became a popular vacation spot. During the 1940s and
1950s well-to-do celebrities like Clark Gable and Carole Lombard (who
honeymooned there), first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and famed architect Frank
Lloyd Wright would visit and enjoy the desert environment.

According to Margaret Spencer, Wright approved of the informal and rugged low
buildings when he visited the ranch. During her Arizona years, Margaret Spencer
helped to establish a Tucson chapter of the American Institute of Architects. , AIA.
There is even a legend that she sketched out the initial floor plans in the dirt with a
stick. Margaret Spencer died on January 1, 1966, in Philadelphia.

Margaret Spencer expanded the buildings over the years, and they now number
20 altogether. In recent years, the site has become rental housing populated
largely by artists and writers.

In 2015, Las Lomas Ranch was considered a National Historic site.

Sheila Spencer Provost, raised for much of her life in Tucson and Los Angeles,
established a home on Lanikai Beach in Kailua, Hawaii during the early 1980s.
Her appreciation for ocean life extended to conservation actions such as hosting
events and engaging international figures in campaigns to help protect dolphins,
fish, and marine animals. She enjoyed assisting all creatures great and small
including butterflies and insects that she recognized as essential for maintaining
the living earth.

As Sheila progressed through life, she sold her other properties and depleted her
money. As of 2019, Sheila considered herself financially broke.

Her ‘Lions Leap’ property was in need of repairs.

The Las Lomas Ranch provided rental income that covered Sheila’s modest living
expenses, Sheila was not able to pay about $50,000 in annual property taxes
starting in 2017.

After paying the Las Lomas Ranch monthly maintenance expenses and crew
salaries, property taxes, with two monthly payments needed for mortgages on the
Lion’s Leap estate in Hawaii, and other property costs, Sheila’s personal net
income was just a few thousand dollars a month.

She commonly rented out Lion’s Leap rooms or allowed people to stay on the property
in exchange for light yard work and animal care. In the past, friends also
provided about $200,000 in investment loans to pay for four years of Las
Lomas Ranch property taxes.
Sheila’s passing and efforts to steal her estate:

January 2020, doctors informed Sheila that she had a form of cancer. Sheila
would die – soon -- unless she received a blood transfusion.
Sheila said she needed to wait until the money was in hand to pay for it. Sheila’s
friend Linda Molina, who was the only person providing care at the time, offered
to pay for the costs of the blood transfusion.

February 21, one month after doctors initially recommended a blood transfusion,
Molina and other friends insisted that Sheila undergo the procedure --
immediately.

April 6, Scott Swartz and three associates coerced Sheila into signing a new will,
and estate documents that leave her entire estate everything to him. Swartz and
associates prevented Sheila’s Attorney-in-Fact personal lawyer and other friends
from seeing her.
Court documents are available to the public, providing facts and insights into
how Swartz and his girlfriend, Jody Lee Bradley prevented Sheila from receiving
adequate medical care They also prevented visits and oversight by other friends
and loved ones

April 16 according to Honolulu District Court documents . . . while Sheila was
receiving her blood test and other health-related news, she also was allegedly
filing a Petition for a Temporary Restraining Order against her friend, Linda
Molina. An examination of Shayla’s signature on that court document indicates a
weak and frail scribble, which does not resemble Sheila’s handwriting.

Saturday, April 17, 2020, at 2 am in the morning, ’Shayla ‘-- Sheila Spencer Provost
dies in her home hospital bed at 77 years of age. Friends believe events of the
previous two days, combined with weeks of poor nutrition, dehydration, and
negligent health care- accelerated her death.

April 22, Sheila’s friends and fellow members of the Knights and Dames of the
Order of the Knights of St John provided a service for Sheila in Honolulu. It
also was the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which was quite befitting for ' Shayla’