Death is hardly fashionable, but a new invention that can turn human remains into sparkling gems may allow us to shine from the grave

WHEN 27-year-old Valerie Sefton died in America on September 10 last year, her cremated remains were turned into six diamonds. Now she will continue on with her family and be thought of and remembered continually in the form of real family jewels.

The young Arizona woman who died of Hodgkin’s Disease, a form of cancer, is the first of 50 orders at the dawn of a new age in the funeral industry. It’s an American invention that will change the way loved ones are remembered. And it’s just the beginning.

In time, fans of Elvis Presley in Jamaica might be wearing diamond bracelets made from the King’s remains. Gamblers could be wearing lucky rings made from favourite race horses. There might even someday be a Princess Diana Diamond.

LifeGem, a Chicago-based company formed in 1999, turns the cremated remains of people and pets into top gem-quality diamonds by separating the graphite from the carbon in their ashes, then heating and crushing it at the sort of extreme temperature and pressure found at the Earth’s core. The process is similar to the one that turns coal into diamonds, except where it takes nature millions of years, LifeGem can do it in just two months.

The company believes it is not in a morbid business but one that provides hope. Indeed, Valerie Sefton’s father, William Sefton, 52, says, “When I first saw my daughter’s ashes they made me sad. Now when I look at her as a diamond it is a very positive experience.”

The service is not just for people. Many LifeGem customers — at least a half — are grieving owners of pets which can be saved as diamonds in varying colours.

“For 2,000 years, there have been just two options, burial or cremation, to commemorate a loved one’s life,” says Gregg Herro, head of LifeGem Memorials.

A thimbleful of ash can be made into a dazzling half carat diamond worth US$4,000 and of the same quality as you would find at Tiffany’s. And for US$22,000 you can have a larger, one-carat diamond made.

Man-made diamonds have been manufactured since the 1950s, when General Electric started making them for industrial use. High-quality diamonds have been made since the mid-1990s and today they are virtually indistinguishable from natural diamonds — a fact that upsets diamond-mining monopoly De Beers of South Africa.

Among the man-made diamond manufacturers is Lucent Diamonds Corporation, whose owner, Alex Grizenko, who runs the production side of LifeGem, began making diamonds near Moscow.

The artificial gems produced by Lucent and other manufacturers are so close to perfect, De Beers is considering putting a trademark on each of its diamonds. It has already set up a Gem Defence Laboratory outside London to teach those in the industry how to find the differences between man-made and natural stones.

Natural gems are expensive because, on average, 250 tons of rock have to be shifted to find one good natural diamond.

“We have refocused most of our production to LifeGem and are planning the first LifeGem production centres in the US and Japan to open in 2003,” says Grizenko. “Japan, with its population of 127 million, will be the world’s largest market because it has a 96 per cent cremation rate.”

The idea of turning humans into diamonds came when Randy Vandenbeisen, who now works with LifeGem, realised diamonds and humans are both made of carbon. He set up LifeGem with his brother Dean and first proved the concept of diamond memorials by secretly testing the system on animals, then cadavers. “We now have thousands of inquiries coming in from all over the world,” Grizenko says. He did not name the countries but said that people in Japan have been flooding LifeGem with inquiries. Japan reportedly has more cremations than any country on earth.

LifeGem technicians collect the carbon created when a body is cremated and extract the graphite. The firm’s prospects improved 10-fold when it was realised that the remains of the long dead can be turned into diamonds, using either ashes kept in an urn or by exhuming and cremating buried remains.

A typical body, newly cremated, can yield up to 10 stones because the carbon is fully collected instead of going up in smoke as it does in typical cremations. “When someone dies they will be shipped to a funeral home with cremation facilities,” explains Grizenko. “Using our technology, they will save the person’s carbon.”

Grizenko says high-content carbon remains will be stored at a LifeGem centre so family members can continue to order diamonds. Memorial diamonds cost about twice as much as regular out of the ground stones. “The process is expensive,” says Grizenko, “because producing a high-clarity diamond ties up our costly presses.”

One of the firm’s latest projects is redesigning the diamond-making presses into more dignified-looking machines in a funeral home atmosphere. “We are talking about beloved human beings whose families want them commemorated in great dignity,” says Grizenko.

LifeGem says it has been contacted by several famous people — industrialists and celebrities — who want to be remembered forever. He declined, however, to identify some of them.

“Someday fans will be wearing rings made from the remains of world stars as famous as Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson or Elton John,” says Grizenko. “How many scientists and teachers would love to wear a diamond ring made from the remains of Albert Einstein?

“Right now, LifeGem is a very small part of our business. We think it will soon be the thrust of everything we do. We are looking for representation in every country. We hope to begin a new era in the way human beings deal with death. Instead of leaving our loved ones in a cold grave or in an urn on an empty shelf, we will keep them forever with us as a diamond, reminding us of their beauty in life. Death no longer has to be a final parting.”