James Hines was a preacher and a funk musician from Allendale, South Carolina
. He was a visible character. He was 2 metres tall (that’s about 6’7” I think) and an albino black man.
60 year old Mr Hines died of cancer in 2004. Inexplicably a worker at the funeral home used an electric saw to take off his feet so he would fit comfortably in a standard size coffin. This despite the funeral home having extra height coffins available. Mrs Hines says she wasn’t told that she needed a bigger one and didn’t consider it herself until people started commenting at the funeral that the casket didn’t look big enough. Nothing came of the questions though and the body was buried. The feet were buried with Mr Hines in the casket.
In April this year, after persistent rumours circulating in the town since 2004, the local police exhumed the body to confirm the situation.
Mrs Hines has now received an undisclosed sum in compensation from Cave Funeral Home though this hasn’t halted the police investigation. Apparently under South Carolina law, destroying or desecrating human remains is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Freaky. Taking ‘solution focus’ to a whole new gruesome level.
“I was kind of like smoothing things out finally. But now it's like starting all over again," Ann Hines said. Sad.
A funeral home owner in a town called Princeton which is near our cabin has been charged too. Here is a snippet of the issue:
ReplyDeleteThe former owner-operator of a now-defunct Princeton funeral home has been charged with 38 criminal counts related to giving 19 grieving families the wrong cremation ashes.
Fred Netherton has been charged with 34 counts of fraud, two counts of neglect of duty in relation to the care of human remains and two counts of offering an indignity to human remains.
What goes on in their brains?
http://www.theprovince.com/news/charges+laid+against+owner+defunct+funeral+home+Princeton/1647660/story.html
Rofl. Heard a story about an Australian fella during the Vietnam war who spent the whole day digging individual graves for some indiscretion. They were for the burial of enemy soldiers who were killed in action. No idea what he did wrong.
ReplyDeleteAs the yarn goes he got to the end of day and found all the graves were too short by a yard or so, so he knocked the lower parts of the legs off to make 'em fit. LOL
This is why a private viewing of the deceased is a good option, if only to make sure the funeral directors do the job properly.
ReplyDeleteApparently the wife did view the body but only from the waist up.
ReplyDeleteLou, I just saw this story yesterday when the funeral home was fined $2000.00! It's going up on my blog today.
ReplyDeleteSick and grisly.
OMG. Crazy beans.
ReplyDeleteWhen my mother passed away, the funeral director asked us to bring not only the clothes she'd be buried in, but also socks and underwear. I thought that was weird, but I guess it's just respectful. Hugs.
ReplyDeleteUltimately it doesn't matter. But it is, unquestionably, disrespectful to his loved ones. What sick shit funeral home.
ReplyDeleteMake that, "a" sick shit funeral home.
ReplyDeleteYes I agree jadedj, the corpse is an empty shell by that time. Just inexplicable really - why do that rather than get a coffin a couple of inches longer? Just weird I reckon.
ReplyDelete