Son claims cryogenics firm only froze his father’s head instead of whole body

A LEGAL battle is brewing between a US cryogenics facility and the son of one of its clients after the company froze his deceased father’s head instead of his entire body, court documents show.

The Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Phoenix, Arizona, is facing a $1m lawsuit after Kurt Pilgeram said he was sent a package from Alcor “which purportedly contained his father’s cremated remains, except allegedly for his father’s head”, which had been transported to a cooler for preservation.

According to legal documents, Mr Pilgeram was “shocked, horrified and extremely distressed” as he knew how important it was for his father, Dr Laurence Pilgeram, to have his whole body preserved.

Dr Pilgeram, a prominent scientist who devoted much of his career to researching the ageing process, collapsed and died of a suspected heart attack on a pavement outside his home in Goleta, near Santa Barbara, California, in April 2015. He was 90.

The claimant argues that Alcor, which is run by Dr Max More, a British-born scientist, was obliged under the agreement to preserve all of his father’s remains “no matter how damaged” and that the company had no right to cremate him.

“There is little, if any, hope of bringing [his] head ‘back to life’ under the circumstances here,” the filing reads.

Lawyers for both sides will pore through the evidence in the coming months ahead of a court date in January, when a trial date is expected to be set.

A lawyer acting on behalf of Alcor said the company could not specifically comment on the case.

Cryogenics involves deep freezing the body with the hope that customers might be able to cheat death and return to life in hundreds or even thousands of years’ time.

Alcor charges around $200,000 for a whole body or $80,000 for the head, with Dr More himself saying in 2016 that he planned to preserve just his head as “the rest of my body is replaceable”.

Alcor Life Extension, which began storing bodies in 1982, has 159 patients whose bodies or brains are being kept at the facility. (© Daily Telegraph, London)

There is little, if any, hope of bringing [his] head ‘back to life’