Carroll Shelby's kids and estranged wife in custody battle over his body

Typically when someone passes away, their body is handed over to loved ones who can then prepare for their final resting plans but the body of automotive legend Carroll Shelby reportedly remains in the medical examiners refrigerated holding facility while Mr. Shelby’s children and his wife Cleo battle over his remains.

Under normal circumstances, a husband’s body is released to his wife but Carroll Shelby and his wife Cleo had been estranged since 2010 when Carroll filed for divorce – leaving his children to demand that his remains are released into their custody. Further hurting Cleo’s claim for the body of Mr. Shelby is the fact that Carroll reportedly filed a petition for annulment in April, citing the reason for annulment being that Clio had misled him about a variety of personal matters from her finances to her real name. However, the divorce proceedings never went anywhere and the annulment request was never addressed so technically – Cleo is still his wife and as such, she is entitled to his body. The good news is that there is a chance that a judge could approve that annulment filing posthumously.

On top of the annulment and divorce filings initiated by Carroll Shelby, he reportedly signed a form giving the rights to his remains to his oldest son Michael. With the help of eldest child Sharon and youngest son Patrick, Michael is attempting to win the rights to his dad’s body with this form. The problem with this is that Cleo claims that Carroll was essentially incompetent to sign any papers in his later years so anything that he signed should not be upheld in a court of law.

It is frustrating that in the overly-litigious American society, a man who had such a profound and positive impact on the automotive industry should have his legacy sullied by a scorned woman with whom Mr. Shelby clearly didn’t wish to spend any more time around. Hopefully, our legal system will rule in favor of common sense –awarding his body to his beloved children and not to the woman from whom he was trying so hard to be separated before he passed away on May 10th at the age of 89. Unfortunately, there is often no place for common sense in our country’s judicial system so the fact that Cleo was still technically married to Carroll Shelby when he passed away may be enough for her to win the rights to his remains.

TorqueNews will continue following this story – hopefully bringing you the news that his remains have been released into the custody of his children and not into the hands of the woman with whom he clearly wanted to connection late in life. Im sure that most men going through such great measures to be separated from their wife would agree that the woman in question would be the last person whom they want controlling their remains and their final resting place.

Source: Autoblog