James Kidd was born on July 18, 1879 in Ogdensburgh, New York. He held residence on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona and was an employee of the Miami Company of Arizona. In November 1949, Kidd went missing in the Superstition Mountains outside of Phoenix, Arizona. In 1954, he was declared missing and dead by the State of Arizona. In 1964, the State of Arizona took an inventory of a safety deposit box owned by James Kidd which contained a holograph will dating from 1930 stating his wishes that the balance of his estate go towards funding research that provided scientific proof of the existence of a soul that leaves the human body at the time of death. The value of the estate after expenses was in excess of $200,000.

The estate went to trial between May – October 1967, as James Kidd had no heirs or immediate family. The Honorable Justice Robert Myers of the Court of Maricopa County, Arizona presided over the case and heard from one hundred thirty-three claimants over the course of the hearings. On October 20, 1967 the estate was awarded to the Barrow Neurological Institute located in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1971, The Arizona Supreme Court overturned the decision handed down by Justice Robert Myers, which resulted in the case going to retrial that year. Again, Justice Robert Myers presided over the case and awarded the estate to the American Society for Psychical Research based in New York City, New York.

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