Dora Kent

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Dora Kent (d. December 11, 1987) was the mother of Saul Kent, a board member of Alcor Life Extension Foundation. She was the object of a 1987 legal controversy about whether she had been murdered prior to cryonic suspension. She was Alcor's 8th patient.

In December, 1987, succumbing to pneumonia, she was brought to the Alcor facility, where she died. Alcor workers removed her head and stored it in a nitrogen-cooled Dewar flask. No physician was in attendance when she died.

The Riverside, California county coroner's office, led by Raymond Carrillo, autopsied the (headless) body and determined the cause of death to be pneumonia. Later, the coroner said that the presence of certain metabolites in the body suggested that she was still alive at the time of suspension. The coroner demanded the head for autopsy. When Alcor refused to produce the head, several Alcor workers were handcuffed and arrested.^[1]

Ultimately, the court granted a restraining order against the coroner, protecting Dora Kent and the other frozen human remains at Alcor from destruction or damage.

News coverage at the time was limited, due to the gruesomeness of the case and the Christmas season.

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