- You know it’s an ugly divorce when it involves disembodied brains.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Or maybe not, but this lady’s stunt sure melted a bunch of human remains like the flames of the inferno.
As you may have already guessed, this isn’t your usual breakup drama. Unless yours also included disembodied brains, in which case we really don’t want to know.
A Russian woman is being accused of raiding her ex-husband’s workplace in a vengeful rage. But this isn’t your regular office — the man works in a laboratory that stores human remains for possible resurrection.
Valeria Udalova, 61, and Danila Medvedev, 41, co-founded the cryogenics company KrioRus in 2005. But after what we assume were relationship issues, Udalova was ousted from the firm for what she calls unfair reasons.
She founded her own competing business Open Cryonics, which is sort of petty enough already. But Udalova wasn’t about to let her revenge stay there.
According to Medvedev’s accusations, Udalova rounded up some of her new staff and headed over to KrioRus’ laboratory. There, she picked up several Dewar tanks, cryogenic chambers used to store the human bodies and organs.
Russian police halted Open Cryonic’s trucks shortly after the raid, wrote Newsweek. Upon the interception, Udalova claimed that the frozen bodies were her legal property.
Is it just us or does this whole thing sound like a plot to some weird sci-fi movie?
Clumsy Thieves
For people who supposedly work in cryonics, Medvedev says Udalova’s gang didn’t do a very good job stealing the brains and bodies. In fact, she may have downright ruined them.
“Valeria did not do it well, she just cheated,” explained Medvedev. According to him, Udalova’s staff didn’t carry the Dewar tanks out of his laboratory correctly.
“There was a risk of damage, it is impossible to transport Dewars in a horizontal position,” Medvedev added.
Reports state that Udalova and her goons cut through a metal wall to access KrioRus’ storage facility. Once inside, they dumped out the liquid nitrogen that keeps bodies frozen inside the Dewars.
“While attempting to steal our Dewars, this nitrogen was spilled. Most of the nitrogen was poured onto the ground,” said Aleksey Potapov, a cryogenics expert at KrioRus.
On top of the bodies, Medvedev claims Udalova grabbed some brains with her as well.
“The brains of our neuro-patients were kept separately, in special metal medical boxes,” Medvedev said.
Medvedev and Potapov explain that the remains will begin to heat up immediately once cut off from their nitrogen supply. Although they’ve been returned to KrioRus, they may have decomposed too far.
Who Owns the Brains?
But what about Udalova’s claims about being the legal owner of the bodies? Well, that’s where things get murky.
Both Medveded and Udalova insist that they are the bodies’ and brain’s legitimate owners. The remains were originally delivered to KrioRus, but according to Udalova, her supposedly unfair ouster gave her the legal ownership.
There’s no clear legal precedent for who the cadavers belong to, at least not in Russia. Cops and lawyers are now investigating which member of the ex-couple can claim the ultimate right of ownership.
In the meanwhile, they’ve demanded that Medvedev and Udalova guarantee the “integrity” of all human remains in their possession. Oh, and that of the dozens of cats, dogs, and other pets.
It might be a bit too late for that, though.
Big Bucks from Brains
By now you’re probably wondering why the couple is freezing human brains and corpses. It’s all done in the hopes that the dead might one day return to life.
Although resurrecting the dead is still impossible with current technology, some scientists think that it may eventually be possible. People banking on such an event are ready to pay large sums of money to freeze their bodies.
With liquid nitrogen, KrioRus thoroughly freezes their “patients” bodies and keeps them from decomposing. This way, they can remain in more-or-less pristine condition until such a time that they can be brought back to life.
Full-body cryogenic preservation costs around $35,000. For the budget-conscious, KrioRus offers to freeze just their brain for $15,000.
Upon resurrection, the brains would be implanted into a new donor body.
KrioRus has frozen around 82 cadavers of Russians, Americans, and British. Some of the foreign corpses were among the ones Udalova stole.
Some people are also ready to pay for the potential opportunity to cuddle their beloved pets again. KrioRus estimates that they currently store 19 cats, 10 dogs, five hamster, four birds, two rabbits, and a chinchilla.
Udalova claims that Medvedev threw her out of company to get all the profit from the lucrative pet-freezing business for himself.
“There are a lot of orders from different countries, especially from dog and cat owners. This is the reason why Medvedev wanted to take KrioRus for himself,” Udalova claimed.