Preserving the dead

PHOENIX -- The heads or bodies of 49 people are being preserved in large metal tubes at a company in suburban Phoenix, and there are more than 500 people on a waiting list to get in when they die. All have bet that somehow, someday they can be brought back to life. Among those on the waiting list is 84-year-old Paul Garfield of Sun City. ''I just want to keep on living. That's why all of us are involved in this,'' Garfield said. ''We have as much faith in the future as the deepest religious person.'' The company, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, has drawn national attention in recent days amid reports that the body of baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams has been sent to the company to be preserved. Alcor spokeswoman Karla Steen refused to discuss the preservation techniques, referring a reporter to the group's Web site. Among the bodies in storage is that of television producer Dick Clair, who received three Emmy Awards for his work on ''The Carol Burnett Show,'' according to Alcor. The company describes the process, called cryonics, as experimental medical technology that stores bodies -- it calls them patients -- either by freezing them in liquid nitrogen or preserving them in a chemical solution. The foundation doesn't guarantee the preservation process and admits the technology to revive a person doesn't exist. The Web site quotes an expert in biotechnology as saying the first revival attempt could take place as early as 2040. To become a member, Alcor charges a $150 application fee and $398 in annual dues. Upon a member's death, Alcor charges $50,000 to preserve a head and $120,000 for the entire body. It says most fees are paid by life insurance. Michael Shermer, a Pasadena, Calif., psychologist who publishes Skeptic Magazine, said scientists are unlikely to ever develop technology that can bring a person back from death. And he said no one frozen to date will be revived because the freezing damages cells. ''Like when you thaw frozen strawberries out, they're kind of mushy,'' he said. ''That's your brain on cryonics.'' -- The Associated Press

INVERNESS, Fla. -- Ted Williams' will said he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered in the Florida Keys, an attorney for the baseball great's daughter said Tuesday.

John Heer, an attorney for Williams' daughter Barbara Joyce Williams Ferrell, said he hadn't read the will as of early Tuesday, but attorneys for Williams' estate had told him the slugger's wishes.

''All versions were consistent that he wanted to be cremated and his ashes would have been spread over the Florida Keys,'' Heer said from his Cleveland office. Williams was an avid angler who fished for decades in the Keys.

Pam Price and Bill Boyles, attorneys for the Williams' estate, didn't immediately return a phone call to their Orlando office.

Williams, the last major league hitter to bat better than .400 in a season, died Friday in Florida at age 83.

Ferrell has accused her half brother, John Henry Williams, of moving their father's body from a Florida funeral home to Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., where bodies are frozen.

Ferrell says John Henry Williams wants to preserve their father's DNA, perhaps to sell it in the future.

Ferrell's husband, Frederick ''Mark'' Ferrell, said Tuesday that Williams' son first proposed the idea of freezing Williams' body more than a year ago.

Contrary to some published reports, Mark Ferrell said his wife was not estranged from her father. She was estranged from her half brother over what to do about their father's body.

''He proposed the cryonics thing to my wife, and she went nuts and said, 'You're not going to do it to my dad,''' Mark Ferrell said. ''There was no estrangement between Ted and his daughter. The estrangement was caused by the cryonics issue in June 2001, and it was caused by John Henry, not Ted Williams.''

Williams and his daughter lived just miles apart but had not seen each other since August, Heer said.

Heer said Tuesday night that attorneys for the estate likely would file Williams' will with the Florida courts later this week, and planned to ask a judge to referee the battle over the remains. He and his client plan to see what happens before deciding whether to take further legal action.

No one answered the phone at John Henry Williams' office, and a business associate said Monday he was out of town.

Ted Williams is being honored Tuesday night at the All-Star Game in Milwaukee.

Ferrell didn't immediately return a call for comment Tuesday. But in an interview with The Associated Press last Saturday, she said, ''John Henry is trying to make money off my father's dead body, and I'm not going to be quiet any more.''

Karla Steen, a spokeswoman for Alcor, would not confirm Monday whether Williams' body was at the facility. Ferrell has said she was told by the funeral home that the body had been taken to Arizona.