James Kidd

James Kidd (1879–1949) was an American prospector who disappeared in 1949, only to have his will discovered eighteen years later by the Estate Tax Commissioner of Arizona. His request that his estate be gifted to "a research or some scientific proof of a soul of the human body which leaves at death" On November 9, 1949 he went to work in the Superstition Mountains and never returned. It was thought that he had fallen down a canyon. In a safety deposit box they found a will dated to 1946 which read as follows:

Court cases Kidd's remaining family attempted to have his will declared invalid. However, when the case went to trial at the Superior Court of Arizona, judge Robert L. Myers received 18 petitions, which eventually grew to 133 from various spiritual organisations declaring that they were best fit to fulfill Kidd's wishes. The trial was called the Soul Trial or the Ghost Trial of the Century by the media and garnered much attention. The estate was originally awarded to the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix but a higher court overturned on appeal and the estate was granted to the American Society for Psychical Research. The court case took a total of 26 years. The money was used to investigate deathbed visions more commonly referred to as near death experiences.