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Williams family fight continues
By CARRIE JOHNSON, Times Staff Writer INVERNESS -- The back-and-forth skirmishes concerning Ted Williams' remains continued Wednesday when a lawyer argued the baseball legend's oldest daughter no longer has the authority to continue her fight to have his body cremated. In a motion filed late Wednesday, the attorney said Bobby-Jo Williams Ferrell no longer has standing in the legal battle over her father's body. The filing requests dismissal of her latest petition to the court, which asks a judge to order a hearing regarding the disposition of the body. A hearing was scheduled for Friday on Ferrell's petition and a motion for protective order, which would have barred Ferrell's attorneys from reviewing Williams' medical records. It was unclear Wednesday whether the hearing would go forward as planned. Ferrell has been fighting over her father's remains with her younger half-siblings, John-Henry and Claudia Williams, since Ted Williams died July 5 at age 83. Ferrell maintains her father never veered from the plan set out in his 1996 will: He wanted to be cremated, with the ashes spread over the coast of Florida. Her half-siblings say Williams changed his mind while he was a patient in a Gainesville hospital in November 2000 and signed a pact agreeing to be cryonically preserved after his death. Williams' body is believed to be currently stored at a lab in Scottsdale, Ariz. The legal dispute was touched off July 16 by a motion filed by the executor of Williams' estate, Al Cassidy, who asked the court for guidance as to what should be done with the Hall of Famer's body. The lawsuit hit a bump last week when Cassidy withdrew that motion. Ferrell has tried to keep the battle alive, asking a judge to weigh in on whether Cassidy's withdrawal is legal. But Robert Goldman, attorney for the younger Williams children, said Ferrell does not have the standing to resurrect the case. "The petition asserts nothing more than Mrs. Ferrell's disagreement with the decision of the personal representative to voluntarily dismiss his petition, which he had an absolute right to do," Goldman wrote.
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