Book Review by Ben Best

   MOTHERMELTERS by Alan Kunzman

    A person wanting to know more about cryonics might think that the 
best way to do so would be to go to Amazon.com and search for books
under the topic "cryonics". Unfortunately, at the top of the list is a book
titled MOTHERMELTERS: THE INSIDE STORY OF CRYONICS AND
THE DORA KENT HOMICIDE. The author knows a great deal about the
Dora Kent case, but almost nothing about cryonics. 

   For those who don't know, Dora Kent is the mother of long-time 
cryonicist Saul Kent. In 1987 Saul removed his 83-year-old mother 
from a nursing home and took her to the Alcor facility in Riverside,
California after she had been examined by Dr. Steve Harris. Dora
Kent was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. She deanimated at 
the Alcor facility and was given (as part of the protocol) barbiturates
to slow brain metabolism. Her head was removed for long-term storage
in liquid nitrogen (awaiting future reanimation) and her body was 
autopsied by the Riverside Coroner's Office before being cremated. 
Discovering barbiturates in the body during the autopsy, the Coroner's
Office sought to obtain the head from Alcor, which Alcor people feared
would be destroyed in an autopsy. Alcor staff were arrested, Alcor's 
computers and files were confiscated and Dora Kent was declared a
homicide victim. Alan Kunzman was the Deputy Coroner who took
charge of the case. 

   Although Kunzman would have you believe that his only motivation 
for pursuing the case so vigorously and for writing the book is his oath
of office and his conscience, it doesn't take much reading between 
the lines to see his other motives. He devotes several pages at the 
beginning of chapter 2 describing in vivid detail what a bored bureaucrat
he was before the Dora Kent case enlivened his existence. The monotony
was broken by wadding paper and throwing it at the other bureaucrats. 

  Others in the justice system were also drawn to the case because of 
its entertainment value. The judge who issued the search warrant told
Kunzman "it's quite a bit more interesting that the usual stuff about drugs,
murders, and other such debris that comes across my bench." And 
Kunzman states "We were all fascinated by the strange case this was
turning out to be." But fascination turned to vendetta, as Kurzman's
ego became increasingly involved. 

    The Dora Kent case seems to be the event that has given Kunzman
the most importance in his life. He makes no attempt to conceal his
hatred of Alcor or of his desire to destroy it.  There is clearly more to 
his hatred than moral outrage. 

   Kunzman refers to Alcor as "Frankinstein Incorporated", speaks of
his "incredible contempt for Alcor" and describes Alcor staffers as 
"weird", "pukes" or "ghouls". He speaks of "the blustering arrogance
of Federowicz or the sputtering evasiveness of Harris". "Federowicz"
is Mike Darwin, the person at Alcor whom Kunzman hated far above
all others. Kunzman quotes himself as saying "They're dirty. We just
have to look in the right places. Look under the right rug until we find
where the dirt is hidden." And look he did. He boasted being the only
person in Riverside who had made a trip to the county law library in 
search of statutes that someone (in this case, Alcor) might be violating. 

  Kunzman was unsure whether Alcor people were sincere or "snake 
oil pushers", but he suspected the latter. He was somewhat shocked 
by the quality of the Alcor members who appeared at the trial: "the
question we all had at our office was how so many supposedly 
educated people had gotten suckered into such a silly scam." He
concluded a major factor was "Federowicz's ability to mesmerize 
and cajole." Kunzman was incapable of identifying with the goals of
life extension and cryonics.

   As soon as Kunzman saw the expensive medical equipment at Alcor,
he suspected that drug dealing was financing the operation. His 
suspicion was confirmed by an unidentified telephone informant who
told Kunzman that cocaine was being mixed with mannitol in South 
America, shipped to Florida and then extracted from the mannitol to
finance Saul Kent's operations. The tipster told Kunzman that the group
regarded themselves to be superior life forms who would survive an
apocalypse to repopulate the earth through cryonics and cloning. He 
said they were people without souls who would lie, steal or kill if
necessary. 

   The core of Kunzman's case against Alcor is that the poor vulnerable
old woman had been taken to the Alcor facility by her heartless son and
killed with barbiturates as part of a ghoulish experiment that included 
cutting off her head -- an experiment that had "no scientific or moral
validity", in his words. Kunzman questioned the pathologist who had done
the autopsy of Dora Kent's body. He got the doctor to confirm that the
only way barbiturates could metabolize so thoroughly was "to administer
the barbiturates to a functioning circulatory system." For Kunzman this 
was proof that the barbiturates were introduced "while Dora Kent was alive."

   There is another explanation which might have occurred to Kunzman 
if he had even a small understanding of cryonics technical protocol. 
Cardiopulmonary support given to a cryonics patient during cooldown
keeps the blood circulating for quite some time after the heart has stopped.
And if Kunzman had known anything about perfusion, he might not 
have used variants of the word "profusion" twice on page 54. 

   Kunzman quoted from Mike Perry's journal of the events on 
December 11, 1987: "The heart rate slowed, weakened, and finally 
Mike & Jerry separately checked with a stethascope, and reported it had
stopped. Dora Kent deanimated around 12:15 this morning. We were
ready..." Kunzman lauds Perry's recording of every detail and curses the 
fact that Perry went to bed at 3am, missing much of the procedure. Did
Mike Perry not write in his journal that barbiturate was administered after,
not before, the heart stopped? Perry did note that Dora Kent was no 
longer being fed intravenously and that her oxygen bottle had been removed.

    The barbiturate issue does raise a touchy question in cryonics. People
are usually declared dead when the heart has stopped. Patients may 
choose to be designated "DNR" -- Do Not Resuscitate. If the heart stops, 
no efforts should be made to revive. It could easily happen that, after the
heart has stopped and death has been pronounced, a person could regain
consciousness when cardiopulmonary support is given. Barbiturates not 
only protect the regaining of consciousness. Currently an anaesthetic 
rather than barbiturate is used for the same purpose. 

    In addition to homicide by barbiturate, Kunzman accuses Alcor of 
tax fraud and of stealing equipment from UCLA. He concludes that these
cases were not pursued due to embarrassment by UCLA officials and
because of laziness in the IRS. 

     Kunzman tells readers that his book would have been three times as
long if he had gone into detail. But much of the book reads as if it is 
padding to make a book-length exposition out of a short story. There is
a detailed description of his co-worker's car and we learn exactly which
junk food items were purchased at the convenience store on the way
to a stakeout. There is lots of trivial dialog. 

    The title of the book comes from a letter from someone at Alcor
(unquestionably Mike Darwin) to the Chief Deputy Coroner. After detailing
how the Deputy Coroner would be harassed for the rest of his life, the
letter ends with the words "have a nice life, mothermelter." 

    No one reading  this book can learn very much about cryonics. Aside
from his incomprehension of the goals and technology of cryonics, 
Kunzman has done a poor job of getting facts straight about history. 
Kunzman informs readers that he believes Timothy Leary "became a 
neuro-preservant at Alcor" when Leary died in 1996. I hate to think of
Kunzman making money on this book or succeeding in reviving a 
homicide case, but I do think the book could be useful for cryonicists
to become familiar with the thinking of our enemies and potential enemies.