The Strange Custody Battle Between a Man and His Own Skeleton

Let's start with a question that most people never have to answer: can you own your own skeleton. Not in some philosophical sense. Literally, as property.

In 2014, a man in Kansas wanted to be cremated and have his ashes mixed with his late wife's remains so they could be buried together. Perfectly reasonable. His family seemed supportive. The funeral home seemed supportive. Everyone was on board. Then his estranged daughter sued him for ownership of his skeleton before he'd even died.

Her argument, which I assure you was presented before an actual judge with a gavel, was that she had legal claim to his remains because she was his next of kin. She wanted to be buried with her mother instead. So while the man was still living, breathing, and presumably watching this unfold, a court had to decide: does he have the right to dictate what happens to his own bones after death, or does his daughter own them.

The skeleton in question was not yet a skeleton. It was still attached to a living person who had to sit in a courtroom and defend his right to his future skeleton.

The case actually went through several rounds of appeals. The man won, then lost, then won again depending on how the court interpreted Kansas inheritance law. The whole thing dragged on for years. I cannot stress enough that this was not a dispute over money or property—it was purely about which family member got to claim his decomposed remains as their personal property.

The man eventually passed away in 2017, I believe with his preferred arrangement intact, which means somewhere in Kansas there is a family that had to have very specific conversations at very awkward Thanksgiving dinners.

The legal precedent it set is still unclear, which is probably for the best. The court system is already confused enough without establishing formal skeleton-ownership protocols.

The deeper oddity here is that this case required a court to treat human remains like a contested piece of furniture. In most of the country, your wishes about your own remains are considered binding unless they're truly outlandish. But Kansas, for a brief and shining moment, decided that your skeleton might actually be community property subject to litigation. No one won that particular culture war.

This Week in Weird History: In 1883, the state of Utah tried to bury a man alive as punishment for murder, but the execution method was so chaotic they eventually just hanged him instead.