Williams’ Children May Settle Dispute

The three children of Ted Williams are expected to get approval today for each to receive $215,000 payments from a trust, a move that could end a legal fight among them over whether to keep the Hall of Famer’s body permanently frozen.

During a brief hearing, Citrus County Circuit Judge Patricia Thomas was expected to approve changes to the division of the $645,000 irrevocable insurance trust among Bobby-Jo Williams Ferrell and her stepsiblings, John Henry Williams and Claudia Williams.

The early distribution of the trust could end Ferrell’s legal objections to her stepsiblings’ decision to store their father’s body at a cryonics lab in Scottsdale, Ariz., last summer, a source familiar with the case told Associated Press on condition of not being identified.

The siblings weren’t expected to attend the hearing today in Inverness, about 50 miles north of Tampa.

The trust was written so that the money wouldn’t be distributed until 10 years after the slugger’s death.

No one answered the phone at Ferrell’s house Thursday night and her attorney, Richard Fitzpatrick, had an unlisted number.

“She has asked for the trust to be distributed and everybody has agreed to it,” said Robert Goldman, an attorney for John Henry and Claudia Williams.

Ferrell sued to have the court decide whether her father’s ashes should be scattered in the ocean off Florida, as he declared in his 1996 will.

John Henry and Claudia Williams have maintained that they signed a handwritten pact with their father in November 2000 agreeing that their bodies would be frozen.

John Henry Williams had his father’s body moved to an Alcor Life Extension Foundation facility in Arizona shortly after his death on July 5 at age 83. Cryogenic supporters say bodies might one day be thawed and brought back to life. Most experts say that is highly unlikely.