Posted on 05/14/2010 2:45:59 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
DES MOINES, Iowa The siblings of a man who died more than a year ago must exhume his body so his head can be cut off and cryogenically frozen, the Iowa Court of Appeals has ruled.
The court sided this week with Alcor Life Extension Foundation, which sought to dig up the remains of 81-year-old Orville Richardson of Burlington. Richardson had signed a contract with Alcor in 2004 and paid $53,500 to have his head placed in cryonic suspension after his death.
When he died in February 2009, Richardson's brother and sister buried him instead, having told him earlier that they would have nothing to do with his plan, court records show.
Alcor learned of Richardson's death two months afterward, when his brother, David Richardson, asked the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company to refund the money already paid.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
A little late!
ROTFL!!! Some people will do ANYTHING to get their cut.
jeez louise....stupid court ruling.....stupid idea of Orville’s also.
Sounds like a 1960’s horror movie.
I thought things like that were only done before embalming?
Man, is he going to be pissed when they bring him back.
“You brought me back like THIS????”
This fool paid Alcor Life Extension Foundation $53,500 so they could have his head?
Why would they want it? If he paid them that kind of money he must have kept it pretty far up his a$$.
Not to be insensitive, but isn’t it a wee bit too late?
The head is rotted and the brains have likely been easten mostly
You can’t make this stuff up. What a wierd case.
ping
Now there’s a job I want: cutting the head off an old dude who’s been melting for a year.
Bring lots of air freshener.
FAIL
For 53 grand I’ll stick his head in my freezer downstairs next to Aunt Tilly.
They preferred the 53K over getting a head. Go figure.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
LOL! I hear you.
Oh no Liberals!!
Sounds like Orville had a contract with ALCOR to have his head cryogenically frozen, with a clause stating that this happen even under bad conditions.
ALCOR merely went to court to fulfill the contract, even though it’s rather late.
LoL!
When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.
The man paid his money for what he wanted. The family had no right to second-guess his intentions. If the company was capable of cryogenically storing the mans brain for an extended period of time, then he would be getting what he paid for. It sucks that the family went against his wishes for the sake of the money, but I am glad the company fought this and won.
You can all laugh about it all you want, but it doen’t change anything. You have no idea what can happen in the future, given where we have come from in only 200 years. In 1810, there were sailboats, and anyone who said there would be anything like railroads and airplanes would have been derided intensely. Who is to say what will be in another 200 years, assuming the libs do not destroy our country. They might actually fail at that, meaning that anythinig is possible.
In 250 years, someone might actually figure out a way to program a human consciousness into a computer. If I was in my 100’s and dying, I would volunteer to be that consciousness, although I would ask for a nice battery backup and several concurrent broadband connections. But we could be looking at nuclear battery backups with 500 years of power.
Burying the guy when he had a contract for brain cryopreservation is just like pulling the plug on Grandma so they can start spending the inheritance. The relatives are the ones who should be excoriated, not the deceased guy.
/johnny

One year dead? Orville should be one more space to the right, IIRC.
I’d rather be pickled then frozen myself. hold the broadband connection.
Alcor sounds as if it could be one of Al Gore’s inventions.
Junk science and no oversight.
What a scam on vulnerable people.
I know the law and order types on this forum, but there is still something rather unseemly to me, about the court giving a corporation head.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, these two relatives, lost the bust.
If you have a family member who wants cryonic suspension in the event of his or here death, respect that person's wishes. That is your sacred duty. Failure to do so should be criminal—and will be, eventually.
What sort of idiot wants his dead head frozen anyway? sheeeesh...what ghouls!
Alcor gets paid regardless. Either the money was in an escrow account or a life insurance policy that they owned.
When Alcor sues families who violate the wishes of the deceased, it COSTS them money.
Alcor sues to fulfill it’s legal obligations.
The family should NOT have violated the wishes of the deceased. If you don’t own your own body, then what do you own?
Haven’t any of you watched Futurerama?
Nixon has been there for years!
Alcor has been around for over 25 years.
The average IQ of the members is adequate for Mensa membership and includes a number of prominent scientists.
They are not scammed; they are OPTIMISTS who have decided to try one-way time travel.
He’s been dead for what, a year now? This is a bad ruling. The company (which is scummy btw), should refund the 55 thousand dollars, as they did not provide any service.
I’d rather have common sense.
Spend your money anyway you like.
My common sense says that in 500 or 1000 years we will have incredible technology. 100 years ago, when your heart stopped beating, the doc pronounced you dead.
We already have frozen, thawed, and re-started animal hearts.
Call me an optimist.
Heads, I win!
Why can I envision Marty Feldman with an overgrown petri dish labelled "Abnormal'?
The article stated that the family would have nothing to do with his plan. There are legal options, which Richardson apparently ignored, to better ensure his wishes would be carried out. Richardson's mistake was believing his family would carry out his wishes, after they told him they would not.
Fair enough. I’d rather have 55k though.
Sound a lot like the Hale-Bopp fanatics. Mensa mandarins are obviously idiots under the skin.
***In 250 years, someone might actually figure out a way to program a human consciousness into a computer.***
IMHO God already determined the nature of human existence. We need only to live according to His commandments.
To equate modes of transportation and other conveniences of technology to the miracle of creation is sacrilege.
We are already diminishing His work with transgender surgery, surrogate wombs and other vanities. The devil himself is clearly dealing in the deterioration of the species.
What promise do you have that when the technology to reawaken or download the brains becomes possible, that your brain will get the service?
“IMHO God already determined the nature of human existence. We need only to live according to His commandments.”
How do you know it wasn’t God’s intention for us to attempt to live longer? Serious question. Someday, assuming technology continues to advance, the average human lifespan may be hundreds of years.
During my aerospace career where I was dubbed “Darth” by my colleagues, I was called both “Visionary” and “nuts”. Management thought I was both. My vision of the future yielded a $6B contract.
Oh yeah, Mensa was a bust. The women were intelligent, but weird. Maybe because it was in LA.
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