This week, the Western Australia Supreme Court’s hearing schedule featured an entry that could easily go unnoticed by the unobservant eye. The listing, titled ‘Giuffre plus Anor v Louden plus Anor,’ is couched in the typical legal jargon that conceals the intricate and contentious real-life drama it represents.

The backstory of this case is rooted in a heartbreaking incident from seven months prior, taking place in the rural farming community of Neergabby. This small town is situated about 50 miles from the urban sprawl of Perth, where the court is located.

It was here, at her secluded farmhouse, that Virginia Giuffre—known widely as the primary accuser of Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious financier and convicted child sex offender—tragically ended her own life on April 25 at just 41 years old. Her passing marked a sorrowful conclusion to a life fraught with turmoil, seemingly overwhelmed by her internal battles.

However, what followed her death was a legal maelstrom, turning an already tragic situation into an even more distressing saga. The aftermath has sparked a bitter conflict involving her estranged husband, Robert Giuffre—who appears to have harbored significant animosity—and their children: Christian, 19, Noah, 18, and a 15-year-old daughter. The dispute also extends to her brother, Sky Roberts, and half-brother, Danny Wilson, both residing in the United States, as well as her former housekeeper and her legal representative.

Her death was a heartbreaking end to a troubled life. Yet the legal fallout – and the ensuing war of words – has arguably become even more tragic.

For in its wake is a bitter dispute that encompasses everyone from Virginia’s estranged – and, it turns out, much hated – husband Robert Giuffre, to their two adult children Christian, 19, and 18-year-old Noah (they also shared a 15-year-old daughter), Virginia’s US-based brother Sky Roberts and half-brother Danny Wilson, as well as both her former housekeeper and her barrister.

For it’s unclear whether Virginia died intestate – meaning she left no valid will – which has triggered a complex, protracted legal dispute over who inherits what.

Virginia and Robert Guiffre. There is an ongoing legal dispute over who inherits Virginia’s estate

Her former lawyer says there definitely was a will: just eight weeks before she died, Virginia created an informal will in writing, although it hadn’t been properly executed.

Confusing matters further is just how much money is left for the family to fight over.

Despite claims of a vast estate, including the £12million reportedly paid by the late Queen on behalf of her son, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, following Virginia’s allegations that she was trafficked to him by Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell at the age of 17 – accusations he has always denied – court documents put the existing sum at only around half a million Australian dollars (about £250,000) prompting questions over what has happened to the rest of the Queen’s millions.

Virginia owned at least four properties, two worth more than £1million, and at least £3million was ring-fenced for her sexual violence support charity, Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (Soar), which she had set up three years ago – but that still leaves a sizeable chunk unaccounted for.

What’s irrefutable, however, is the enmity between Virginia and her husband, Robert, in her final days and months.

As a friend exclusively told the Daily Mail: ‘It is fair to say that by the end of her life Virginia absolutely hated Robert. She absolutely did not want him to have any of her money.’

It is this crucial tangle of questions, claims and counterclaims that brought lawyers for several interested parties to a skyscraper in central Perth yesterday, for an initial procedural hearing ahead of many looming court actions that will determine the fate of Virginia’s fortune – and, by extension, the money paid out by Queen Elizabeth.

The fact that the legal process to decide the fate of that money began in an unremarkable conference room in Perth is one of the more bizarre aspects of a case that is already mired in scandal, legal wrangling and competing claims.

The infamous photograph of Prince Andrew, Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell

Only this week Virginia’s paternal aunt, Kimberly Roberts, told a newspaper that Virginia’s two brothers were seeking a chunk of her estate. ‘We don’t believe they have a right to it,’ she said. ‘The estate should go to her children only.’

In response, in a statement made to the Daily Mail this week, the brothers vehemently refuted the suggestion that they were seeking financial gain from their sister’s estate.

‘While we will not comment about an open case before the court, we wish to reiterate that Virginia intended for her estate to be administered as she laid out in the informal will she drafted with her attorney ensuring the vast majority of it go to her children and be properly managed on their behalf, versus to her estranged husband Robert,’ the statement read. ‘We have every confidence in the court that this will be the case.’

While the brothers would not be drawn on whether they have hired their own lawyers in Australia to challenge any claim made by Robert Giuffre on their sister’s estate, separately their PR representative also told the Daily Mail that they believed no credit could be given to Kimberly’s claims, given her close links to Virginia’s father – whom Virginia claimed had raped her as a child.

The explosive claim was made in Virginia’s memoir, Nobody’s Girl, which was published posthumously last month.

In it she said she’d been raped by her own father for many years, starting at the age of seven, and had also been trafficked to one of his friends, who did the same, and that friend was later imprisoned for a similar crime.

Virginia’s claims were, in turn, strenuously denied by her father: ‘Just to straighten this out, I never abused my daughter,’ he said.

There has been no allegation that Kimberly was aware of any abuse.

Virginia Roberts in Australia in 2011. Virginia’s memoir, Nobody’s Girl, was published posthumously last month

Theirs was not the only fractured relationship in Virginia’s life, however. At the time of her death she was also estranged from her martial arts instructor husband Robert. Their troubled marriage of 23 years forms the backdrop to much of the legal drama that has unfolded.

Virginia met Robert in Thailand in 2002 during a trip funded by Epstein for her to undergo professional massage training. The pair married just ten days later, and she told Epstein she was not coming home and was instead moving to Australia to start a family. Robert seemed initially to provide a safe haven for Virginia, rescuing her from the evil clutches of Epstein, but in the months before she died she claimed her husband had become ‘emotionally and physically controlling’.

‘I was unable to escape the domestic violence in my marriage until recently,’ she told the US magazine People.

She added: ‘After my husband’s latest physical assault, I can no longer stay silent.’ In January this year she was hospitalised following an alleged assault which a spokesman later claimed was inflicted by Robert – an accusation he again strenuously denied.

He was then granted a restraining order against his wife, as well as temporary custody of the couple’s children.

He remained in the £1.2million family home in Perth overlooking the Indian Ocean, while Virginia retreated to her £1.3 million Neergabby farmhouse.

It was against this poignant and messy backdrop that, in April this year, Virginia took her life, days after a bizarre post on Instagram in which, accompanying a selfie showing her looking bruised and battered, she said she had been in a severe accident after a school bus collided with her car, resulting in kidney failure.

She wrote that doctors had given her ‘four days to live’.

Virginia with brother Sky Roberts (left) and half-brother Daniel Scott Wilson

One month before, she had apparently sent an email to a respected Perth-based lawyer called Craig Hollett which, he subsequently revealed, had been an ‘informal will’ in which Virginia underscored her fervent wish that her estranged husband did not inherit any of her estate in the case of her death.

‘If I don’t make it, please don’t let Rob have any money,’ she wrote, under the subject line ‘implied will’.

In that same email, Hollett said, Virginia also stated she wanted her money to go to her children, as well as to other family members, a handful of friends and to charity.

Yesterday the claim was backed up by Virginia’s former barrister, Karrie Louden, and Cheryl Myers, her housekeeper and carer, in their submissions to court.

They say Virginia had indeed begun ‘making an attempt’ to draft a new will before she died, and had also written a note appointing them as trustees.

This contention is opposed by Virginia’s adult sons who are also set to argue that their mother’s medical records show that she did not have the ‘testamentary capacity’ to make a will cutting their father off.

Either way, as the couple were separated, not divorced, under Australian law Robert may still be entitled to a third of his deceased wife’s estate – whatever its worth.

Alongside the £12million payout, there was also the £371,000 paid by Epstein in 2009 and an undisclosed sum paid by Ghislaine Maxwell – now serving a 20-year sentence in a US federal prison for trafficking offences – after Virginia sued her for defamation.

Sky and Amanda Roberts, brother and sister-in-law of Virginia attend a press conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, ahead of a House vote on the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein

Whether these payments helped finance her property holdings – alongside the family home in Perth and the Neergabby farm, she owned two other properties – and whether these will form part of her estate, is unknown.

Yet, the court’s Statement of Claims says she had interests whose ‘value will exceed the sum of $472,000’ in several items.

This included 50 shares in the Witty River Pty Ltd company which owned the Neergabby farm. It also states she was a beneficiary of that company’s family trust, owned a 2017 Toyota Kluger, a 2024 Chevrolet Silverado, ‘a horse, jewellery, other personal effects and the contents of the Neergabby property’.

The latest legal wranglings stem from the decision at the start of June by Virginia’s two sons to place an advert in a government gazette naming themselves as her estate’s administrators and asking creditors to come forward – a decision that the Daily Mail understands puzzled Virginia’s wider family.

‘The boys still live with their dad, so the fact they applied on their own to become administrators seemed unusual,’ the source said.

It was this action that prompted the legal proceedings which kicked off yesterday.

The brothers’ request is being contested by Louden and Myers – the latter described as a ‘mother figure’ to Virginia – who have mounted a legal challenge to prevent Virginia’s sons being granted authority over the estate.

At yesterday’s hearing, contrary to Virginia’s final wishes and efforts, it was recommended that Robert would indeed be added to the proceedings as a potentially interested party.

Meanwhile, it emerged earlier this week that the court has appointed an interim administrator to oversee the estate during any ongoing legal disputes – standing in, effectively, for Virginia herself.

Those legal proceedings are legion: aside from the ongoing issues over her estate, Virginia was also involved in a number of other actions, among them a continuing case involving the US lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who had sued Virginia for defamation after she alleged she had been trafficked to him as a minor.

She retracted the allegation, saying she ‘may have made a mistake’ in identifying him. The arbitration is understood to relate to an ongoing out-of-court settlement.

Complicating matters further still is the fact that at the time of her death Virginia was also being sued by a US-based woman called Rina Oh over social media posts and a podcast in which she claimed that Oh was an ‘official’ part of Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme and physically abused her. Oh strenuously denies the claims, saying she was also one of Epstein’s victims, and sued for defamation.

Following Virginia’s death an appeals court in New York ruled that Oh’s claim could proceed on the basis that civil liabilities survive a defendant’s death.

It is a knotty legal mess, with court proceedings likely to stretch long into the future – the legacy of a woman whose death continues to cast a long shadow over those she left behind, while also leaving the question: what did happen to the Queen’s missing millions?

• Additional reporting by Daniel Bates in New York and Candace Wallace in Perth.