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Two ask for mediation with their half-sister, who has wanted to ''rescue'' the hitter's remains.
By CARRIE JOHNSON, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 18, 2002
INVERNESS -- Lawyers for Ted Williams' feuding children said Wednesday the siblings will try again to privately resolve the bizarre dispute over the remains of their father.
Claudia and John-Henry Williams, who maintain that their father wanted to be frozen and preserved after his death, asked a judge to order mediation to avoid further public legal battles with their half-sister, Bobby-Jo Williams Ferrell.
Ferrell has led the fight to "rescue" her father's remains from an Arizona cryonics lab, where he was sent hours after his death July 5 in Citrus County.
Ferrell has accused John-Henry Williams of attempting to cash in on their father's remains, possibly by selling his DNA. Robert Wayne Goldman, who is representing John-Henry and Claudia Williams, strongly denied the accusation during a news conference Wednesday.
"One point should be made clear: Claudia and John-Henry Williams will never profit from their father's body or the disposition of their father's remains," he said.
Richard "Spike" Fitzpatrick, Ferrell's attorney, said mediation is standard practice during a civil dispute and would probably be ordered by a judge.
"We will continue to try to work to resolve our concerns," he said. "There's middle ground everywhere."
The siblings tried to work out their differences Monday. But after 11 hours of discussion at Fitzpatrick's Inverness office, they gave up and announced the stalemate the next day.
On Tuesday, the executor of the estate, Al Cassidy, filed Williams' last will and testament. It stated that the famous hitter wanted to be cremated and have his ashes "sprinkled at sea off the coast of Florida where the water is very deep." But Cassidy filed a petition stating that Williams changed his mind since the will was executed on Dec. 20, 1996, and expressed a desire to be cryonically frozen.
John-Henry and Claudia Williams affirmed this in their motion Wednesday but did not produce supporting documents.
The motion also argued that the court in Citrus doesn't have control over this issue because Williams' body is no longer in the county, and that the will is not the final authority on what should be done with Williams' remains.
"John-Henry Williams and his sister had authority to cryonically preserve Mr. Williams," the motion said. "Mr. Williams' final wishes were that he be cryonically preserved."
But Fitzpatrick said he hasn't seen anything yet that confirms Williams changed his mind about cremation: "If you had something clear and unambiguous that would clear up this case . . . wouldn't you have produced it by now?"