Now Banner Insurance is balking at giving the money to the widow, Raven Leigertwood, 31.
No arrests have been made in the killing of her husband, and the investigation is ongoing, said Yeadon Police Chief Donald Molineux.
"We're still running with it," he said Tuesday.
The Citizens Crime Commission of Delaware Valley continues to offer a $50,000 reward for information leading to arrests, said its president, John Apeldorn.
In a petition filed with U.S. District Court in Philadelphia on Aug. 30, Banner Insurance noted that investigators have "not eliminated" Raven Leigertwood as a suspect.
The company deposited the $1 million with the court, asking that it accept it and sort out who should get it.
Banner invoked Pennsylvania's "Slayer's Law," which bars any "principal" or "accessory" to a killing from benefiting from the crime.
In the petition, the company also said that to avoid complications, it did not want to make payment to Viola Leigertwood, the victim's mother, who is a Philadelphia police dispatcher.
If payment were denied to the widow under the Slayer's Act, the mother would be the beneficiary, the company noted. However, if the widow were subsequently cleared, Raven Leigertwood might have a legal claim against Banner.
For her part, Viola Leigertwood "is hoping for a just solution," said her attorney, John Di Giorgio.
As of Tuesday, no attorney had filed to represent Raven Leigertwood, who now lives in Newark, N.J., and could not be reached.
In a segment of NBC's Dateline three months ago, Raven Leigertwood recounted the events of the morning of Sept. 13, 2008, recalling that as she was feeding her 7-month-old daughter, police officers entered her house to tell her that a man was dead in her driveway.
She said she was in denial that it could have been her husband. "At this point I pick up the phone to call him," she told the interviewer, "because I need him to come back."
Veno Leigertwood was a 2001 graduate of Pennsylvania State University, had aspirations of being a neurosurgeon, and studied biology and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, according to his mother.
He was a Philadelphia School District guidance counselor who worked with low-income students and had recently been promoted.
He also had an interest in real estate, and on the morning of the shooting was on his way to a class at Eastern College, in Radnor Township, where he was about to earn a master's in business.
He was packing a laptop into the car when he was shot once in the neck. Yet, the computer was not taken, nor his wallet or watch.
Contact Anthony R. Wood at 610-761-8423 or twood@phillynews.com. Inquirer staff writer Joelle Farrell contributed to this article.
