Honolulu Lite
It's tough being dead these days. If you're a dead person in one of the Southern states, it's likely you weren't buried or cremated, just sort of left lying around the place like old lawn furniture. Rude treatment of dearly
departed is a grave situationIf you're a dead person on the Big Island, you might have been tossed in the ground in some old body bag instead of the expensive plush casket your loved ones picked out for you to spend eternity in.
And if you're a dead person who's been cremated on Oahu, your ashes might get chucked out of an airplane, and you end up spread all over somebody's back yard and driveway.
Like Rodney Dangerfield, the dead don't get no respect. At least they haven't been lately.
First came word a few weeks ago about a Georgia crematory where several hundred bodies that were supposed to be cremated were found scattered around a rural farm. Bodies were everywhere: in the barn, under the house, in the pond, out yonder, over hill, over dale, even up some dusty trails. It was like some weird, twisted story by Dr. Seuss. Or the Addams Family.
The strangest thing was that the Tri-State Crematory had been run by a well-respected family for years. For some unknown reason, the operator, 28-year-old Ray Brent Marsh, just went off the rails and stopped cremating the bodies. Instead of cremated remains, he gave family members little boxes of concrete powder, which some of them put in urns and kept on fireplace mantles. For years they thought they were honoring Aunt Maude or Uncle Ernie when, in fact, they were paying homage to a jar of grout.
Everybody's pretty sure Ray Brent's a few cows shy of a herd, but being an old crime reporter, I wonder if he committed the perfect murder. What if he killed one guy years ago, and to cover it up he just started strewing bodies all over his property? There's no way cops could figure out which of the more than 300 decomposed bodies was a murder victim. It seems a bit extreme, but see who gets the last laugh after Ray Brent gets away to pleading guilty only to littering. I've got dibs on the movie rights.
On the Big Island, the Memorial Mortuary is under investigation for allegedly charging people for caskets and concrete vaults but actually burying the deceased clients in body bags. If true, that's a pretty gruesome way to make a buck and one that I'm pretty sure reserves you a special place in hell.
I guess we should be thankful that at least the dearly departed were buried and not simply flung into a Sears shed behind a mortuary.
Then there's the curious case of the cremated remains of an unnamed hiker being spread from an airplane over a Papakolea neighborhood. Apparently, the defunct individual was a hiker who wanted his remains to be spread in a lush valley. For some reason, the remains floated into a housing area, landing in yards and on roofs, much to the dismay of the living inhabitants.
I think it would be kind of creepy to have your roof and lanai dusted with the remains of some dead guy. But I'm sure it was just as distressing for the victim's family, who no doubt wanted him to become one with nature, not a blow-up swimming pool and lawnmower.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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