Trial shows Astor lacked will power

NEW YORK: "Death is nothing and life is everything," Brooke Astor wrote to the executors of her estate in June 1992, outlining instructions for her funeral.

"I want you to know that I am terribly happy and not in the least bit afraid to die," the philanthropist said in a typewritten note months before her 90th birthday.

The letter was introduced on Tuesday as evidence in the trial of her son, Anthony Marshall, who is accused of stealing from his mother as her health deteriorated in the years before her death in 2007.