A dying billionaire who has been described as the Canadian Jeffrey Epstein could be held to account for his actions if he is defrosted after his death. Robert Miller, 80, has been accused of trafficking multiple underage women for decades, with his alleged crimes going back to the 1970s, but they fear that they could die before he is brought to trial. While he is described as having reasonable mental capacity for a man his age, he is suffering from late-stage Parkinson’s disease and a heart condition.
But he is also a big donator to cryonics and has expressed a desire to undergo the process after his death. Cryonics is an as yet unproven process that sees people frozen in time until the technology is available to defrost them and cure the ailments that caused their deaths in the first place. When a person is declared legally dead and undergoes the cryonics process, they are no longer seen as “dead” in the traditional sense, but in what is known as “suspended animation”.
Their bodies are filled with medication to protect their cells in a process that is likened to organ donation. They are then stored in vats at a temperature of -196°C. Around 500 people in the world have had the unique process after their death since 1967.
Miller is reported to have donated large sums of money to an institution called Alcor Life Extension Institution in Arizona, which charges $220,000 (£173,000) to preserve a whole body and $80,000 (£63,000) to preserve someone’s brain indefinit.