The niece of ice cream icon Tom Carvel suspects foul play in his death, and she is calling for the exhumation of his body from a Hartsdale cemetery.

Tom Carvel was buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in 1990. Since his death, the wrangling over his estate has become a drawn-out legal battle. Pamela Carvel says she thinks her uncle was drugged or suffocated by greedy workers who were suspected of stealing from the ice cream empire.

Tom Carvel started selling ice cream out of a truck in Hartsdale in 1929. One day after getting a flat tire, he was forced to sell a softer, melting product. The feedback was great and the first Carvel store was born on Central Avenue. The soft-serve formula would end up going worldwide and Carvel became known as the father of modern franchising.

Pamela Carvel says she hopes the autopsy gets underway within a few weeks. The Carvel estate is worth $80 to $250 million.