{"id":681549,"date":"2010-03-03T16:05:59","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T21:05:59","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-10-04T11:09:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T15:09:47","slug":"court-awards-custody-of-grandmothers-frozen-head-to-cryonics-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/681549","title":{"rendered":"Court Awards Custody Of Grandmother&#8217;s Frozen Head To Cryonics Company"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/consumerist.com\/assets_c\/2010\/03\/fryintube2-thumb-155x104-37681.jpg?w=780\">         <\/p>\n<p>There are many things that a family needs to consider and in the weeks and months after a loved one&#8217;s death. A <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Health\/Wellness\/court-grandmothers-frozen-head-cryonics-company\/story?id=9978346&#038;page=1\">court battle over legal custody of her frozen head<\/a> should not be one of those things, but that&#8217;s what a Colorado family faces after the death of their 71-year-old grandmother.<\/p>\n<p>Mary Robbins had signed a contract with cryonics nonprofit Alcor for her head to be frozen after her death, and for the company to receive a $50,000 annuity to help care for her. (You may remember a similar legal battle over <a href=\"http:\/\/deadspin.com\/5372847\/somehow-the-chilled-afterlife-of-ted-williams-manages-to-get-weirder\">the remains of baseball great Ted Williams<\/a>.) <\/p>\n<p>According to the family, she changed her mind in her final days, canceling her contract with the cryonics company and avoiding preparations that hospice staff were not comfortable with.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Two days before she died, Robbins changed the beneficiary on her annuity policy so the money would go to her family, an act witnessed by family and non-family, Scranton said. The lawyer said that others heard Robbins say that she no longer wished for her head to be frozen.<\/p>\n<p>Darlene Robbins said she contacted Alcor to let them know her mother had changed her mind and &#8220;they hung up on me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Alcor, Scranton said, rejected Robbins&#8217; verbal cancellation of the contract, &#8220;saying oral revocations don&#8217;t count. That it has to be in writing.&#8221; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We hope that this situation is resolved amicably and quickly. Remember, for situations as mundane as a gym contract up to serious end-of-life matters, never assume that breaking a contract orally is enough. Make sure that your intentions are perfectly clear and in writing, and valid in the jurisdiction where you happen to be at the time.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Health\/Wellness\/court-grandmothers-frozen-head-cryonics-company\/story?id=9978346&#038;page=1\">Court Gives Custody of Grandmother&#8217;s Frozen Head to Cryonics Company<\/a> [ABC News] <em>(Thanks, LadySiren!)<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.alcor.org\/Library\/html\/pr2010-03-01.html\">Colorado Springs Court Upholds Desire of Alcor Member to be Cryopreserved<\/a> [Alcor Press Release] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are many things that a family needs to consider and in the weeks and months after a loved one&#8217;s death. A court battle over legal custody of her frozen head should not be one of those things, but that&#8217;s what a Colorado family faces after the death of their 71-year-old grandmother. Mary Robbins had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2758,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-681549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2RiJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783004,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681549\/revisions\/783004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}