INVERNESS, Fla., Dec. 20 (UPI) -- A judge approved Friday the distribution of $200,000 from an insurance trust to three offspring of the late Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams.
In exchange, his daughter, Barbara Joyce Jo Ferrell, has agreed to drop her opposition freezing the Hall of Famer's body. Each sibling will receive $215,000.
Ferrell had suggested that if the money could be distributed immediately rather than wait for 10 years as originally stipulated by the trust, she would not contest the freezing.
Citrus County Circuit Judge Patricia Thomas approved the deal, which was agreed to by the trust. Lawyers for the siblings and the trust attended the hearing, but Ferrell and her half-siblings, John Henry Williams and Claudia Williams, did not appear.
"Mrs. Ferrell, John Henry Williams and Claudia Williams have reached an agreement regarding the disposition of their father's body," said a written statement on behalf of the estate.
"Mrs. Ferrell has withdrawn her petition and will take no further action regarding the disposition of her father's body," the statement said.
Williams, considered one of the best hitters in the history of baseball if not the best, died of cardiac arrest July 5 at the age of 83 after years of heart trouble and a serious stroke.
Ferrell had said that hours after his death, her father's body was sent to Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., where it was frozen at minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit. This would allow the body to be revived later, according to the foundation.
John Henry Williams hopes to sell Ted Williams' DNA or profit some other way from his fame, Ferrell said. But Jerry Lemler, director of Alcor, said many of the schemes that have been mentioned aren't possible, especially if they involve cloning.
He said Williams' DNA had been readily available by using strands of hair or fingernail clippings.
Claudia and John Henry Williams have produced a handwritten note signed by Williams on Nov. 2, 2000, in which he agreed to be frozen after his death.
But Ferrell questioned the validity of the note, and said a will dated in 1996 takes precedence, and that it specified that Ted Williams wanted to be cremated with his ashes scattered over the waters of the Florida Keys.
