DOCUMENT: Crime

Son To Join Ted Williams In Frozen Afterlife

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Son To Join Ted Williams In Frozen Afterlife

MARCH 15--On the subject of post-mortem cryonic preservation, it's like f-f-f-f-father, likes-s-s-s-son. John Henry Williams is joining dad Ted, the Boston Red Sox legend, on ice at Alcor, the controversial Arizona "life extension" facility. The younger Williams, who died earlier this month from leukemia at age 35, stipulated that he also wanted to eternally beat the Scottsdale heat in a -196°C liquid nitrogen-filled pod. That request came in Williams's will--a copy of which you'll find below--filed last week in Florida's Citrus County Circuit Court. The document, dated last December 22, dictates that Williams's body be "cryonically preserved" alongside his father, the baseball Hall of Fame member whose July 2002 death triggered a bitter family fight over whether he wished to be cremated or warehoused at Alcor. Though Williams had signed a 1996 will requesting that his ashes be sprinkled at sea, John Henry produced a handwritten note from November 2000 purporting to show that the men (and Ted's daughter Claudia) had entered into a pact to freeze themselves after their deaths. Amazingly, that oil-stained document, which John Henry kept in his car trunk, proved to be a key factor in determining where the Splendid Splinter's remains were sent. (9 pages)