Immortal Longings

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31365, 10 May 1967, Page 19

Immortal Longings

(N.X. Prue Awn.—Copyright; PHOENIX (Arizona), May 9. A judge said yesterday that from June 6 he would try to solve a puizle philosophers have pondered for centuries—is there a human soul? Superior Judge Robert L. Myers fixed the trial date and assumed jurisdiction in the unique case, which centres on the will of a prospector who left his 200,000dollar estate for “research or some scientific proof of a soul of the human body which leaves at death.” An Arizona miner, James Kidd, disappeared in 1949 and was declared legally dead the next year. A few years later, his will was found in a safe deposit box. As of yesterday, 73 claims had been filed by people or institutions seeking to qualify tor the estate, or challenging Kidd’s unusual bequest

And the number of claims may swell Judge Myers said he had received thousands of letters from people claiming they could prove the soul existed, that they were relatives of Kidd, or just asking for a share of the estate. Some have suggested that the fortune be used for charitable or educational purposes. In accepting “jurisdiction and duty to construe the provisions of the last will and testament of the deceased,” Judge Myers did not fix a deadline for the filing of additional claims.

To facilitate trial proceedings, he assigned numbers to 71 of the claimants. The judge also stipulated that claimants must submit an estimate of the time they needed to present their qualifications and evidence. Two of the claims left unnumbered were those of the estate tax Commissions Office of Arizona and all of Kidd’s alleged heirs.