Cryonics Lab Accuses Coroner of Smear Drive

Coroner’s investigators probing the death of an 83-year-old woman whose head was frozen by a cryonics laboratory here are waging a “vicious smear campaign” against the lab, a spokesman for the organization and the woman’s son charged Monday.

Michael Darwin, president of Alcor Life Extension Foundation, asserted at a press conference here that the investigation is a “witch hunt” carried out by “people who have been given guns and badges, but little training and less supervision.”

But Darwin and Saul Kent, son of the dead woman, Dora Kent, refused to disclose the whereabouts of Dora Kent’s head, which is sought by the coroner. They also declined to answer reporters’ questions about the woman’s treatment before she died, including whether she was denied food or medication. They said they had been advised by attorneys not to answer such questions.

Alcor and other advocates of cryonics store frozen heads in the hope that one day in the future, the heads can be revived and new bodies cloned for them. Most scientists dismiss cryonics as fantasy.

Darwin said coroner’s officials “have stopped at nothing to destroy Alcor’s credibility and engender feelings of hostility and alarm about Alcor in the public.

‘Loved Ones’

“Alcor, an organization of decent and law-abiding people, whose only crime is attempting to save the lives of their loved ones, has been made out by the coroner’s office to be . . . possibly, murderous,” he said.

Riverside County Coroner Ray Carrillo could not be reached for response to Monday’s press conference. Coroner’s Supervising Investigator Daniel Cupido would not respond, except to say, “We are continuing the investigation at full force.”

The coroner’s case has focused on the circumstances surrounding the death of Dora Kent, whose head was then surgically removed and frozen at about minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit in liquid nitrogen in the Alcor laboratory Dec. 11. The investigation was launched when it was learned that a physician was not present when the woman died, authorities said.

Separately, Alcor has come under investigation by UCLA police trying to determine whether medical equipment and prescription drugs used at the facility were stolen from the university.

Surplus Sales

Darwin reiterated Monday that the supplies were bought legally at hospital surplus sales and that Alcor members have done nothing wrong, except “minor” zoning infractions involving the disposal of infectious wastes and failing to have a doctor present at the time of Dora Kent’s death.

“We should have had a physician present,” Saul Kent said. “It is a requirement of this county.”

Kent, 48, of Woodcrest, who said he was appointed his mother’s conservator in February, 1987, told reporters that his mother wanted to be cryonically preserved.

“She absolutely wanted this procedure. She definitely did want to be frozen,” he said.

Coroner’s investigators have been trying since mid-December to examine the woman’s head, which they say is needed to complete an autopsy and determine a cause of death. Alcor representatives have refused to give it to them.

Authorities say they have not ruled out homicide as a cause of death.

Confiscated Material

As it stands, investigators have confiscated much of the equipment, chemicals and computers needed by Alcor officials to freeze the bodies of its members should they die, Darwin told reporters after the press conference.

If a member were to die now, he said, “we would do the best we could under the circumstances.” A “worst case,” he said, could include “just taking a person and packing them in dry ice.”