The Daily WTF: Ted's Dead Head

Needless to say, the above picture is not the cryonically frozen Ted Williams, who has made national headlines for years, always in controversial fashion.

The version of Ted Williams of which I speak would confuse the holy heck out of Jessica Simpson, who would once again begin to question what she's been eating all these years out of those Chicken of the Sea cans.

Regardless of what's been in those cans, the thought of what Alcor employees did to Ted Williams' head is enough to give you indigestion.

According to his book Frozen: My Journey Into the World of Cryonics, Deception and Death, former Alcor employee Larry Johnson claims he watched an Alcor official swing a monkey wrench at the frozen head of Williams twice, in an attempt to knock off a can of tuna; Johnson states that cans of tuna are often used as pedestals for the severed heads.

The first swing took new meaning to the phrase knock your face off. The Alcor official hit the skull dead center, as "(t)iny pieces of frozen head sprayed around the room." The second swing hit the can and dislodged it.

Johnson cites a crack in Williams' skull as further evidence of the abuse and mishandling of Teddy Baseball's preserved likeness.

Alcor officials claim that the severing of the head is commonplace in terms of the preservation process, and that cracking is a normal after-effect of the process (not necessarily a sign of mishandling, or monkey wrench use for that matter).

Although Johnson wasn't present, his in-depth research helps him describe Ted Williams' day of cryonic freezing in such a manner that it resembles the horrific events of Abu Ghraib, where US soldiers posed with the helpless bodies of their POWs. Several people posed for pictures with Williams' body, both before and after the audacious act was accomplished.

The Daily WTF goes to...

John Henry Williams.

It was a close call between John and those at Alcor, but think about it: none of this would have happened if Ted's own children had simply obeyed his will. The motor oil-stained "legal document" bearing Ted's signature is about as rock solid in legality as a glove not fitting OJ's hand.

Even if he really signed the paper, there's no telling if he even knew what he was agreeing to, considering how unofficial, informal, and illegible the scrawled piece of parchment is; his children claim it was signed "during a tender moment" just before a surgical procedure (at which point, Williams may or may not have been looped out on meds).

Bobby-Jo Williams fought tooth and nail to have his father's will honored, but could no longer afford the legal battle.

Unfortunately, John Henry Williams died of leukemia shortly after his father's death, or else we may be able to learn the truth about this horrific chain of events.

It's so sickening that I felt compelled to write a poem about it:

Listen to my Will

Your cryonic face is
an empty (cracked) shell of the
symbol of an American hero.

You fought for your country
and your teammates.
What a disgrace for it to end this way.

This wasn't what you wanted.
You would have chosen a fiery grave
followed by a dip in the ocean
over this ice cold encasement.

That paper, stained in motor oil,
scrawled with the penmanship of a first-grader,
has turned a funeral into a circus.

Pictures of you in uniform,
US Air Force and Boston Red Sox,
are tarnished by your ice body,
frozen against your figurative and literal will.

While it may eventually come out that the accusations against Alcor made by Johnson in his book are false, John Henry Williams will always fall under public scrutiny for what his decision has done to the legacy of Teddy Baseball.

WTF, John Henry Williams?

Sources

Associated Press
The Smoking Gun
MSNBC