From wire reports. Not to be reproduced for profit. This is only reproduced for purposes of genealogy research.

Lawyers for a CorpusChristi family who claims to be the unacknowledged descendants of South Texas rancing baron John G. Kenedy Jr. said Wednesday, 16 June 2004, that a Court of Appeals ruling gives the green light to the planned exhumation of Kenedy's body.

Travis County Probate Judge Guy Herman in January 2004, ordered an exhumation so DNA tests could be performed to determine if Nueces County Medical Examiner Ray Fernandez and his mother Ann Fernandez are Kenedy's heirs and ppossible entitled to the estimated half-billion-dollar Kenedy estate.
The 13th Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi issued an emergency stay before the exhumation could occur but in a ruling Wednesday appeared to have reversed course.
But attorneys for the two charitable organizations that oversee the Kenedy fortune disagree, saying that the appeals court was vague on the exhumation matter.
"Our position is that until the matter is further clarified, that there is no legal basis to proceed with an exhumation," said Jorge Rangel, attorney for the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation. And we certainly intend to vigorously contest anything done by anyoneseeking firther orders to exhume the body."
The appeals court offered just a single sentence lifting its stay at the end of a lengthy 2 to 1 opinion, which ruled that some elements of the case of Herman's court be returned to state District Court in Kenedy County.
The case originally began there but was assigned to Herman because tiny Kenedy County does not have a probate judge. Herman consolidated several other cases into the original case and the appeals court ruled that he didn't have the jurisdiction in consolidating three of the cases.
Fernandez family attorneys point to that last sentence though which read,"we also life the stay of teh proceedings."
"In my opinion, this statement from the majority gives the Fernandez family the green light to proceed with the exhumation ," wrote Fernandez attorney Sam Westergreen in an e-mail to a national wire service. "The best news for the Fernandez family is that we will finally know th etruth abotu Ann Fernendez' paternity which we have been trying to establish now for several years. The bad news is that there will be more complicated litigation and appeals."
The Fernandez family argues that Kenedy who was presumed sterile when he died in 1948 ( due to a childhood illness of mumps), conceived Ann Fernandez with his maid Maria Rowland and then kept the child secret for decades. Th eFernande3zes said Maria didn't divulge the secret until a hospical bed confession in 2000.
Attorneys representing the Kenedy Foundation and John G,. Kenedy Jr. Charitable Trust say that even if Ann Fernandez is Kenedy's daughter, the lawsuit was filed years too late to have standing.
Herman said late Wedesday that his initial examination order expired Feb 28,2004. "I would assume the lawyers would come before the court seeking reaffirmation of the relief previously granted,"he said.
Kenedy is buried in a family plot on the Kenedy Ranch deep in South Texas brush Country about 60 miles south of Corpus Christi. The cemetery is overseen by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Catholic Group that runs the Lebh Shomea House of Prayer on the ground of teh former Kenedy mansion.