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A final decision on Ted Williams' body still on ice

Legendary figures * As a junior he hit a remarkable .583 * He began playing professional baseball in high school * In 1938 he won the league triple crown title by hitting 43 home runs, driving in 142 RBIs and completing with a .366 batting average * He collected 17 All-Star game player honors Source: taipei times

The three children of Ted Williams are expected to get approval yesterday so that each of them will receive US$215,000 payments from a trust, a move that could end a legal fight among them over whether to keep the baseball Hall of Famer's body permanently frozen.

During a brief hearing, Citrus County Circuit Judge Patricia Thomas was expected to approve changes to the division of the US$645,000 insurance trust among Bobby-Jo Williams Ferrell and her stepsiblings, John-Henry Williams and Claudia Williams.

The early distribution of the trust could end Ferrell's legal objections to her stepsiblings' decision to store their father's body at a cryonics lab in Scottsdale, Arizona, last summer, a source familiar with the case said on condition of not being identified.

The siblings weren't expected to attend the hearing yesterday in Inverness, Florida, about 80km north of Tampa. The trust was written so that the money wouldn't be distributed until 10 years after the slugger's death.

No one answered the phone at Ferrell's house Thursday night and her attorney, Richard Fitzpatrick, had an unlisted number.

``She has asked for the trust to be distributed and everybody has agreed to it,'' said Robert Goldman, an attorney for John-Henry and Claudia Williams.

Goldman wouldn't confirm whether Ferrell would drop her legal claim in exchange for receiving her share of the trust early.

``The trustees were asked by Bobby-Jo's attorneys to consider making these distributions and terminating the trust,'' said Goldman, who noted it's unusual for trusts to go through the court system. Ferrell sued to have the court decide whether her father's ashes should be scattered in the ocean off Florida, as he declared in his 1996 will.

John-Henry and Claudia Williams have maintained they signed a handwritten pact with their father in November 2000 agreeing that their bodies would be frozen.

John Henry had his father's body moved to a Alcor Life Extension Foundation facility in Arizona shortly after his death on July 5 at age 83. Cryogenic supporters say bodies might one day be thawed and brought back to life. Most experts say that is highly unlikely.

The siblings had been in continuous negotiations during the past several months, and hearings on the issue were twice postponed.

Under the original terms of the trust, written in 1986, the Williams children could get up to a third of their share of the trust after turning age 40, no more than half of their share after turning age 45 and the full amount after reaching age 50. Both John-Henry and Claudia Williams are in their 30s, while Ferrell is in her 50s.

The trust made arrangements to provide for Louise Kaufman, Ted Williams' longtime companion, should he die before she did. Kaufman died in 1993.

It also made arrangements for payments to be made to the Williams children, with approval from trustees, for their ``reasonable comfort, support, benefit and also education.''
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