It’s always surprising how craftiness and intelligence, which one would expect to be joined at the hip, can exist almost independently to each other.
I've long thought that pure desire/drive is much more important than intelligence in just about everything, including things that stereotypically require intelligence like programming, math etc.
In this case, more like sometime someone can buy their lies so much even they start to believe them?
I cannot help but wonder, "What did the cop do with the body?"
It looks like he was working toward an adverse possession claim. In Florida it's 7 years of "open and notorious" possession, as well as paying all property taxes (which it sounds like he did), filing a letter with the appraiser's office (which it sounds like he did), and improving the property (which he did). His adverse possession claim was interrupted 4 years into the 7 year clock, and then he tried to file an "unjust enrichment" claim to get the money he spent on the property back.
His big mistake was forging the signature and impersonating the decedent. If he'd just signed under his own name and hoped nobody noticed, no felonies would've been committed and he would have a case to get back the $200K in the "unjust enrichment" lawsuit.