American Notes CALIFORNIA

, Saul Kent wanted to bestow the ultimate gift upon his sickly 83-year-old mother: a new life. So when Dora Kent was near death last December, Saul, 48, took her to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Riverside. There, her head was cut off and frozen in liquid nitrogen. Called cryonics, the process is based on the hope that someday scientists will be able to attach the head to a new body.

But was Mama dead when she lost her head? Last week the Riverside County coroner's office, after performing toxicologic tests on Dora's headless body, classified her death as homicide. The coroner asserts that Mrs. Kent was injected with barbiturates, which hastened her death. Alcor officials maintain that the barbiturates were administered immediately after she was clinically dead to "act as a preservative and insulate the brain."