A man in Montana wants his dead father’s frozen head back.
Before his death, Laurence Pilgeram paid $120,000 to an Arizona-based Alcor Life Extension Foundation to preserve his remains at a temperature below -196 degrees Celsius, hoping that one day there will be a technology to bring him back to life.
After Pilgeram died of cardiac arrest in 2015 at the age of 90, his son Kurt received a box of his cremated remains from the shoulders down. Only his father’s head is being kept in a container of liquid nitrogen in Arizona.
Kurt Pilgeram, 57, filed a $1 million lawsuit against Alcor, arguing that his father wanted his whole body preserved, and is demanding the head back, as well as an apology.
“They chopped his head off, burned his body, put it in a box and sent it to my house,” Kurt told the Great Falls Tribune. “I want people to know what’s going on.”
Alcor claims it had upheld its agreement with Laurence Pilgeram and accused his son of trying to tap into life insurance funds that have been designated to the firm for the cryonic preservation process.
On its website, Aclor said Laurence Pilgeram was its 135th patient and a “neurocryopreservation member” who had an interest in cryonics dating back decades.
Alcor explains that it has “no specific interest in preserving heads,” but the goal of the “neuropreservation” process is to “restore the patient to health by regrowing a new body around the brain using future tissue regeneration technology.”
Kurt Pilgeram said if he receives the head, he would cremate it and the ashes of his father would be spread across the family ranch in Eden, Mont.
