COLD CASE

Woman Who Froze Hubby’s Body Loses Lawsuit to Get It Back

Barbara Watters was afraid his remains would be cut up for medical science.

A Missouri woman who kept her dead husband’s body in a freezer has lost a lawsuit that demanded officials return the corpse to her. But Barbara Watters, 68, told The Joplin Globe that she plans to continue her fight. “They think they got away with something. But I’m not done,” she said. Watters was arrested last year and charged with abandonment of a corpse—the body of Paul Barton, 71, who died of Lou Gehrig’s disease. She said she feared a doctor would cut up the remains for medical study, and a court dismissed the case. Barton’s body has been in a refrigerator in the morgue while Watters sued the city and police. Now that she’s lost, it’s not clear what will happen, but the coroner says the only options are burial, cremation or donation to medical science—all of which the widow rejects.