Freezing People is (Not) Easy

by Bob Nelson

  What he said was nowhere close to the truth, but I conceded that he won the battle. I remembered the women’s conversation I had overheard in the hallway and knew we were going to lose—and were going to lose big. I looked at Joseph Klockgether to check his reaction, which was pretty much the same as it had been through the trial. He looked at me with a slight smile on his face and shrugged.

  It was now Winterbotham’s turn to address the jury. I gave him a sideways glance, checking his mood and hoping his lithium was working.

  He also warmly greeted the jury, thanking them for their kind attention. He said he hoped they would look at more than the excellent lawyering of Mr. Nothern’s presentation, because this was not about calling me “the General,” it was about facts.

  “And the facts stack up fully on my client’s side,” he said. “The first point is that Mr. Harrington called Mr. Nelson. The most important issue of this entire case is whether this was a donation of the body and money to the CSC or a cloak-and-dagger clandestine business deal between Mr. Nelson and the Harrington brothers. If you find it was a donation, then of course you must find for the defendants, and that’s why the plaintiffs have worked so hard to obscure that legal foundation by calling it a business deal. You swore an oath, and your responsibility requires that you confirm a legal judgment, not pass judgment on Mr. Nelson’s beliefs.

  “On the Harrington side we have their word, no evidence. On Mr. Nelson’s side we have his word and documents signed by both the Harrington brothers. We also have the history of the CSC and CSNY, as well as CS Michigan’s policy of refusing to accept a cryonic suspension without the body being donated to the society research program. With every freezing performed in the United States, there has never been a cryonic suspension without a donation of the body—including, I might add, this one.”

  I looked at the jury, hoping that Winterbotham was undoing some of Nothern’s damage, but their faces were inscrutable. “It would be insane to do otherwise—you could be sued for it. We then examine the years of service donated by Mr. Nelson without salary or payment of any sort. He is a true believer, and it is not unusual to find true believers who spend their entire life fighting for their cause.

  “You have seen where Mr. Nelson froze a number of friends and strangers at his own expense and took personal responsibility for their freezing for as long as he possibly could. We have seen where Mr. Nelson has given countless radio and television interviews, as well as lectures at colleges, hospitals, and national conferences.

  “Mr. Nelson, along with the scientists and doctors he assembled, froze the world’s first human being, Dr. James Bedford, on January 12, 1967. He wrote a book about cryonics and the freezing of Dr. Bedford. He built the world’s first long-term storage vault on cemetery grounds, and he maintained several suspended cryonics patients by himself for years.

  “What more can you ask of him? Was he sincere? You’re damn right he was sincere. He gave this work his entire life and lost his wife and family because of his devout faith in cryonics.”

  Winterbotham paused and leaned against the jury box. He stopped for so long, I worried he had fallen asleep again. “He accepts the responsibility for the accidental failure and the loss of Mrs. Harrington, Genevieve de la Poterie, and Steven Mandell. Have you noticed that no one else is suing over the other patients lost in that same capsule, not Pauline Mandell or the de la Poterie family? They know Mr. Nelson gave it a 100 percent effort. And the biggest evidence of Mr. Nelson’s character is his response to the capsule failure. He could have just hid it and not told anyone. Who would have known? He could have filled the capsule up with liquid nitrogen and pretended as if nothing had happened.

  “That’s what Mr. de la Poterie and Terry Harrington suggested. Just fill it up again and carry on as though it never happened. Mr. Nelson flew, at his own expense, to look Mr. de la Poterie and Mr. Harrington in the eye and explain the loss of the capsule. He then flew to Michigan and told the father of the cryonics movement, Professor Robert Ettinger, that there had been a failure at the cryonics facility.

  “Without a doubt some mistakes were made, but, ladies and gentlemen, when you look at the enormity of Mr. Nelson’s challenge, how could there not be setbacks? Mr. Nelson went to Iowa at Mr. Harrington’s request and made the arrangements for placing Mrs. Harrington in suspension. He had the brothers sign all the proper legal forms for a donation, and here they are.”

  Winterbotham pointed at Terry Harrington, who immediately looked wide-eyed and innocent. “They claim they don’t remember what they signed. It was enormously difficult to complete a suspension in Iowa; Mr. Nelson made that happen. And Mr. Nelson did not get the ten thousand dollars personally. That money was a donation to the CSC. Just look at the Harringtons’ tax returns and I guarantee they show that both brothers took that ten thousand dollars as a tax deduction.

  “The CSC kept Mrs. Harrington in temporary storage for two and a half years and then made it possible for the Harrington brothers to conduct a service and a two-hour viewing. This is no General, my friends; this is no man masquerading as Jesus Christ. This is a man who became caught up in something so big, it was like a tornado, and it threw him and his frozen friends through a storm.

  “I think we must recognize that Bob Nelson picked up the cryo-ball and ran a long way with it. In some ways he made a touchdown, and in other ways he didn’t. But one thing he never did was to make a secret deal outside of the cryonics circle with Terry and Dennis Harrington. That is why the ten-thousand-dollar check was sent to CSC offices and deposited into the CSC bank account. That money was used for dry ice replacement over the next thirty months.

  “The total cost of the dry ice replacement over that time span was exactly $10,800, not counting the labor and the transport of one hundred miles per week. If you calculate that, it comes to twelve thousand miles of Mr. Nelson driving to faithfully replace that dry ice without ever missing once. Does that sound like a con man?

  “I ask you to please be fair with Mr. Nelson. While you may not like the idea of frozen bodies and trying to bring people back from the dead, the ultimate truth is this: Was this transaction a donation, or was it a scam? I thank you sincerely for your honest consideration.”

  It was 11:30 a.m. when the judge dismissed the jury for lunch and ordered them back the next day for deliberations. Winterbotham and I arrived at about noon the following day and waited around. I kept asking him what he thought the jury would do, based on his experience and their expressions and demeanor. He shrugged and said it could go either way. At 3:00 p.m. the light went on in the courtroom, indicating that the jurors had reached a verdict. The verdict would be announced at 3:30.

  I felt sick about Joseph Klockgether. He always had good intentions, but I feared that Nothern’s angle of pitting Joseph and me as competition to God was going to be a tough hurdle to overcome. At 3:30 we were all standing at attention, facing the jury. The courtroom was packed with spectators and news media. My heart was racing, and I had to keep my hand on my knee to keep it from shaking. The court clerk asked in a loud, booming voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, have you reached a verdict?”

  The forelady answered, “Yes we have.”

  “Would you please read the verdict?”

  The forelady read loudly into a microphone. “On the matter of intentional infliction of emotional distress, we find as to the defendant Joseph Klockgether for the plaintiffs, Terry and Dennis Harrington, and order the defendant to pay damages in the amount of . . .”

  With those words, it seemed like the building began to shake violently, accompanied by the roar of an enormous ocean tsunami. In my head I screamed, No, no! You can’t do this to this innocent wonderful man. Joe Klockgether only gave his help freely to those who asked for it. How could you not see this truth?

  A surge of rage and hurt rushed through my body like I had never felt before. I tuned out hearing the amount of the damages against Jos
eph Klockgether. I knew the same fate was about to fall on me, but I didn’t care about myself. All I had was enough money for gas to get home!

  I said as loud as I could, “You have no idea the mistake you have just made.”

  The forelady ignored me and continued rattling on with the judgment against Joseph. I was devastated for him. I stood up, walked past the jury, and stomped out of the courtroom. I was not giving them the pleasure of witnessing my reaction as they delivered the verdict against me.

  My unexpected maneuver allowed me to avoid the ten news cameramen who were waiting to learn the verdict; they were caught completely unprepared for my sudden departure. I just rushed past them and their bewildered looks. I was almost out of the courthouse before they realized I was their story. They hollered, “Mr. Nelson, where are you-u-u-u . . .” as the Hall of Justice doors slammed shut behind me.

  I had driven a friend’s car to court that day since I didn’t want to be with Winterbotham in case the verdict went against me. About halfway home I heard on the radio that Klockgether and I had been found at fault.

  Four hundred thousand dollars . . . each.

  I slammed the off button on the radio, slammed the car door when I reached my apartment, and then slammed my bedroom door, those words reverberating inside my thick skull for hours.

  I could feel the compassion, cultivated by my cryonics goals, draining from my body. My lifelong dream had resulted in catastrophe. I locked myself in my room for two days, needing to recover from getting my head smashed with a sledgehammer. Judgment day will endure forever as an excruciating memory—even if I am suspended and revived centuries in the future.

  I now owed those vultures almost half a million dollars. I needed a new attorney, and it would cost twelve thousand dollars to obtain a copy of the transcript so that I could file an appeal. I vowed that day that I would never again discuss cryonics with anyone, beyond what might still be necessary to finish up this legal mess. I would forever turn off that cryonics switch in my head and once again make my children, who had for so many years seen so little of me, my focus for the rest of my life.

  Chapter 16

  Appeal and Settlement

  The insult of that jury’s decision was more than my soul and spirit could bear. I had given years of my life to this journey and had been condemned for my trouble. I tried hard to fight off the self-pity, but I still could not comprehend that this nightmare was the end product of all my hopes and dreams.

  I was numb with disbelief at the verdict; the jury had ignored the facts and documentation and instead handed down an emotional verdict based on the image that Nothern had projected onto Klockgether and me.

  The jury likely felt it was their job to stamp out a perceived assault on Christianity. It was, without a doubt, the prime objective of the plaintiffs’ effort to pit us against God. That malevolent and hypocritical distortion made me sick. I had the deepest respect and love for the teachings of Christ; to me cryonics was a gift of the Creator, no different than organ transplants or any other heroic medical treatment.

  My anger at these circumstances was almost unbearable. Joseph Klockgether, who had given his time and services free of charge for years, was also now expected to pay almost half a million dollars to these liars. If anyone had a right to hate me, it was Joseph. I had gotten him dragged into this trial, and I had made all the decisions that led to the closure of the vault. But the bloodsucking, soul-killing plaintiffs needed me to get at Joseph’s insurance money. Despite everything, Joseph and I are friends to this day, as close as we were during the beginning days of the cryonics movement.

  My friend Stella Gramer advised me to either appeal the verdict or move to Canada. “You can’t avoid a punitive damage judgment; you can’t even use bankruptcy against it. You have to appeal. There’s simply no choice.”

  Between the judge not allowing the AGA documents and my lawyer’s failure to disclose his lithium medication and his resulting crazy behavior in the courtroom, I had an excellent shot at winning an appeal. The only problem: I was flat broke. I had already sold my beloved Porsche to pay Winterbotham. There was nothing left.

  I was grateful when my friend Sandra Stanley offered to help with my legal woes. She was a newly practicing attorney and immediately filed for the right to appeal with the second appellate court. Joseph’s attorneys also filed. Sandra petitioned the court to waive the twelve-thousand-dollar fee for the trial transcript, basically telling them I was destitute. This was crucial to what happened later, and that snake Worthington watched closely.

  I finally learned the loophole that justified the judge’s inexplicable decision to exclude the Anatomical Gift Act. Judge Shelby had written the California attorney general before the trial and asked that if the AGA was fraudulently utilized, did that protect the person perpetuating the fraud? In a fit of bureaucratic sleight of hand, the reply stated that even if an organization was declared a medical research nonprofit, it didn’t mean they actually were a medical research nonprofit. To my knowledge, there was never a hearing prior to Judge Shelby’s ruling so that we could establish that the CSC was a legitimate foundation and we had not fraudulently used the AGA.

  If I obtained the waiver, nothing would prevent a second trial. With Sandra’s help, I could represent myself in court. A delicious benefit would be the nightmare I’d create for Worthington. Not only would the judgment against Joseph Klockgether’s insurance company be delayed indefinitely, there was a real chance that Worthington could lose that judgment. However, without the waiver, I couldn’t get my hands on the court transcripts, and no transcript meant no appeal.

  About a month into the legal process, Sandra received a call from Nothern with an unexpected offer to settle the judgment against me. Joseph’s insurance company had made overtures, suggesting they would pay the debt, but they wanted to wait until my appeal was resolved. Nothern and the rest of the vultures needed my appeal dismissed so that they could get their hands on the four hundred thousand dollars in insurance money—the big prize. They knew I didn’t have any money.

  Their strategy proved very well thought out. Additionally, they wanted to represent me in a lawsuit against my attorney, Winterbotham. Of course they would pocket whatever money they managed to get from him.

  I was now in the peculiar position of negotiating with the vermin and charlatans who had created this situation, destroyed my legacy in cryonics, and excoriated my honor in court. However, the offer sounded great. They could feast on Winterbotham if they dropped that ridiculous judgment against me. I just wanted to be freed of the ordeal, but I would reject the offer if it harmed Joseph.

  I called Joseph the next morning and explained Nothern’s offer. The trial’s negative publicity had damaged his reputation, and a lien had been placed against his mortuary until the insurance company paid the judgment. My heart ached for him.

  Joseph agreed to the offer and wanted to talk to his attorney. A couple days later, he called me back and said, “Don’t be concerned about my case. Just do whatever you need to end this and put this insanity behind you.”

  This was a great relief. “Joe, I’m so sorry. I never thought we’d get to this point.”

  “Don’t feel guilty on my account. I know this was a money grab, and I know there’ll always be people like that. After all my years in the business, nothing surprises me.”

  I didn’t feel charitable like Joseph. “Worthington surprised me. I’d heard about such nasty lawyers but had never met one. He engineered this whole thing—found the Harringtons, convinced them to sue, and fed them the lies.” About that time I learned, too late unfortunately, that if I hadn’t shown up for trial, Joseph would have won by default—there was no evidence against him. By trying to do the right thing morally, I did the worst thing possible strategically.

  “For them it’s just business,” Joseph said. “That doesn’t make it okay; it’s just the way of the world.”


  Sandra and I made an appointment to meet with Nothern at his Century City office to finalize the agreement. I told Nothern that I would deal with him only and not with Worthington; that man had become the only person on this planet I actually hated. For me, he was the con artist, swindling an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar judgment out of the jury.

  When we met, I told myself to smile, but I hated shaking Nothern’s hand.

  He patted my hand, his voice sounding as smooth as a hypnotist’s. “Mr. Nelson, I’m so sorry for everything you’ve just gone through. I know this has been terribly difficult, but it will all be over soon.”

  With his instinct for knowing exactly what to say and how to say it, he had managed to enchant me once more. Sitting at that oak conference table in a sumptuous leather chair, sipping divine coffee that a gorgeous secretary had brought me, I felt like I was making some Faustian agreement. Although the deal was technically good, I still cringed at the injustice, since I had tried to help the plaintiffs. Through that verdict, I feared the lawyers’ lies would become the official version of my actions at Chatsworth and negate my contributions to cryonics. After all my years of investing my time, my soul, and my money, I wondered what my lasting contribution to cryonics would be. In the end, had I advanced the goals that I loved? Had I helped advance the life’s work of my hero, Professor Robert Ettinger? Had my work mattered at all?

  My pen hovered over the settlement papers with the same trepidation I had felt when I sat in another lawyer’s office and had signed my divorce papers. With that signature, I had ended my vow of lifelong commitment to my wife Elaine, and I knew these settlement papers would be my last act as a cryonicist. With this signature, all those hopes and dreams I had carried for more than fifteen years would fade into the past, becoming more hazy and irrelevant with each passing year. My life, which had once seemed so destined and sure, now seemed hazy, as though I was peering through the fog of liquid nitrogen vapor. I wondered about that man, that future Bob Nelson, who wasn’t a cryonicist.