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10 Creepy Stories From

Funeral Homes AndCrematoriums

Funeral homes and crematoriums can be unsettling simply because most

people want to avoid them. If you have to go to one, it’s because you’ve lost

someone, or you are close to someone who lost someone, or even worse,

you’re the one in the casket. If funeral homes and crematoriums weren’t

creepy enough on their own, they are also the setting for some truly

disturbing and bizarre stories.

Needless to say, we want to warn readers that this list isn’t something you

want to read while you’re eating.

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10Bobby Wilks

In 1!!, "obby #ilks was $1%years%old and he had been the funeral

director at the "arber Funeral &ome in 'ross (lains, )ennessee, for at least

*+ years. t the gravesites, #ilks would often advise the families of the

deceased to not watch the lowering of the casket because it might be too

difficult. -any families heeded his advice after all, he was the e/pert when

it came to funerals.

In 0ctober 1!!, #ilks gave a family his usual gravesite spiel, and the pallbearers walked away from the gravesite of their deceased loved one, but

kept #ilks in their sight. )hat’s when they saw #ilks throw some potted

flowers into the grave and he didn’t put on the lid of the vault, a 23$ add%

on that #ilks had sold them. )hey went to the police and they arrested

#ilks.

0nce #ilks’ arrest made the news, other families filed complaints against

him. )he only way to check the claims was to e/hume bodies that were

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buried by #ilks and 2+ graves in all were dug up. 4ike the initial case that

#ilks was arrested for, some of the graves were buried without vaults, but

sadly, that was only the beginning and the least offensive thing he did. t

least 1+ coffins were stuffed with garbage like bottles, dirty diapers, usedcans of dog food, and bags of hair. t least two coffins were buried on their

side and one had an arm sticking out of the coffin. )hat suggests that #ilks

didn’t lower the caskets, they were 5ust dumped in. &owever, those people

were lucky to get a casket. 0ne man was buried without one. gravedigger 

who helped e/hume the bodies said that it was like #ilks was angry at the

dead.

In 0ctober 1!, #ilks pleaded guilty to 6! different charges and was

sentenced to *! years and 11 months in prison.

9The Body Baron of Broward County

In 133, 7oseph 8amiano opened a body%transport business in south

Florida. &e won a number of lucrative contracts and monopolized the

market. fter a few years, the transport business led to a cremation

services business.

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)hen in the 1+s, 8amiano was hit with several lawsuits. )he first one was

in 16 a woman sued 8amiano because she believed her husband’s

ashes were mi/ed with someone else’s. t the trial, former employees

testified that at 8amiano’s crematory, ashes from different people wereoften mi/ed together. Notably, more ash was ordered to be added to

cremated babies because their remains don’t leave much in the way of ash.

&e was sued for that very reason in 1!, when &eather 9mith’s five%

month%old daughter was cremated by 8amiano’s company. t that civil

hearing, 8amiano didn’t show up to defend himself. In another case,

8amiano was accused of losing a woman’s ashes entirely. 0ther allegations

were that instead of scattering ashes, 8amiano 5ust had them dumped

behind the crematorium or the parking lot.

In every civil case, 8amiano lost, and he was ordered to pay 2 million to

the people he wronged. &owever, barely any money was collected by the

claimants because 8amiano didn’t have any property in his name. Instead,

he put all his businesses and property in the names of other people.

In *++1, there was an investigation of funeral services in Florida, and the

fact that 8amiano owed so much in lawsuits and an additional 1$,+++ in

fines to the government, he :uickly drew their attention. )hey looked into

his business and found out that 8amiano didn’t have a license to run an

incinerator. )hey also made another startling discovery;8amiano had

been illegally renting out bodies to an embalming school without the

survivors’ knowledge. In at least two cases, 7ewish people were embalmed,

which is prohibited in 7udaism. s many as <++ bodies were illegally rented

out for 11+ each.

In -arch *++1, 8amiano’s operations were finally shut down and he was

arrested for fraud and operating without a license. &owever, in -ay *+1<,

8amiano popped back up in the news because he is running an online a

cremation service out of 'olorado called &eritage 'remation (rovider and

4egacy Funeral 9ervices. 'ustomers say ashes come back mishandled

and in some cases, it took months to get the ashes. )here are even some

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people who have accused the company of holding the ashes of loved ones

=ransom.>

!ark Calebs

News stories about people stealing things from funeral homes are sadly not

that uncommon. &owever, none of them are as creepy as -ark 'alebs.

9hortly after midnight on 7une *3, 1!, the staff of a funeral home in

4ondon, ?entucky, was alerted that there had been a break in. )hey lookedaround and nothing seemed to be missing. )hat is until they looked in the

casket of nine%year%old "rittany @ae "radley. "rittany @ae had passed

away after a two%year battle with a rare cancer, and earlier in the evening,

the funeral home had hosted a visitation for her. nd as for what was

missing, well, that was her underwear .

#hen the discovery was made, the family of "rittany @ae accused her

cousin, 21%year%old -ark 'alebs, of stealing the undergarment. )he policelooked in the camper where he lived and found the missing underwear. )he

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good news, if there can be good news in a story like this, is that there were

no signs of se/ual abuse on "rittany @ae’s body. 'alebs was charged with

third degree burglary, abuse of a corpse, theft, and criminal mischief.

"!ark #illella

0n ugust 1, 1, funeral director -ark Aillella found something that no

husband ever wants to find a letter written by his wife that was addressed

to her lover. 0ver the ne/t several days, -ark and his wife of two years, *!%

year%old B/elee, talked things over, and at times, things got heated. 0n the

night of ugust $, B/elee called her sister and said that she and -ark were

having a fight. &er sister became concerned when B/elee didn’t call back.

B/elee’s co%workers also realized something was wrong when she didn’tshow up for work and -ark didn’t call looking for her as he was prone to do

nearly every day in a 5ealous fit.

)hree days after B/elee called her sister, the police interviewed -ark, and

he admitted that they had a fight. &e told the police she had left him and he

had no idea where she was. &owever, B/elee’s family had a problem with

that because it didn’t seem likely that B/elee would leave her 1!%month%old

son behind, and her car was still in the driveway.

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)he police looked into B/elee’s disappearance and came to a rather ghastly

conclusion. 0n the same day that police interviewed him, -ark hosted a

closed casket funeral for !%year%old -ar5orie &utchison. )he police had

reason to believe that -ark put B/elee’s body in the same casket as&utchinson and buried them together. )hree weeks after B/elee went

missing, they confronted -ark and they told him they were going to e/hume

&utchinson’s casket, so he confessed to stabbing B/elee in the throes of

passion. &owever, the police contend that he stabbed her as she slept.

-ark didn’t want to go through a costly divorce and he didn’t want to share

custody of their son. &e pleaded guilty and he was sentenced to 2+ years in

prison.

$Anthony %arisi

In 7uly 1!<, nthony (arisi passed away at the age of !2. (arisi, who was

a co%founder of a grocery store in -ount Aernon, New Cork, died of natural

causes and his body was being held at the Cannantuono Funeral &ome,

also in -ount Aernon.

0n the morning of 7uly *<, the employees of the funeral home went toprepare (arisi for his burial and when they looked into his casket, they

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discovered that his head was missing. )he police were called and they

speculated that sometime in the middle of the night, someone broke into the

funeral home and they used a razor or a scalpel to remove the head. 0nce

the head was cut off, the intruder took it with him or her. Nothing else in thefuneral home was stolen or perturbed. )here weren’t even signs of a break

in.

)he police are baffled by the case. )hey have no idea who stole the head,

why it was stolen, and they don’t know what happened to it because it was

never found.

&'ulie !ott

0n ugust 1$, *+1$, friends and family of 7ulie -ott attended her visitation

at a funeral home in 9an ntonio, )e/as. &ad she been alive, it would have

been her *<th birthday, but -ott had lost her battle with cystic fibrosis the

week before. 9he had been diagnosed with the life shortening disease

when she was *%years%old.

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#hile the funeral should have been part of the grieving process for -ott’s

friends and family, the funeral was the start of a new nightmare. 9ometime

after the visitation, but before the funeral home closed for the day, someone

took -ott’s body out of her casket and then they took her body with them.9adly, the body has never been found.

)he police are unsure who stole the body of the pretty, young woman and

they are e/ploring multiple theories. 0ne theory is that an e/%boyfriend who

was supposedly obsessed with her took the body. &e was one of the last

people seen e/iting the chapel. &owever, police used cadaver dogs to

search the man’s car, home, and some property owned by his

grandparents, and nothing was found. &e’s also never been publicly

identified by the police, let alone charged with any crimes.

 nother theory that comes from the owner of the funeral home, @obert

=8ick> )ips Dyes, that’s his nameE. &e believes that the body may have been

stolen by someone who was morally ob5ected to cremation.

 nother theory is that the funeral home may have been involved in the

disappearance. In 7anuary *+1<, -ott’s family sued the funeral home for

gross negligence. )he e/%boyfriend also blames the funeral home. &e says

that they lost -ott’s body or had her prematurely cremated. In the funeral

homes’ defense, )ips pointed out that he helped organize searches in the

first weeks that -ott’s body went missing and he has offered a *+,+++

reward for information on the whereabouts of her body.

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()obert Winston

-ost people get into the funeral business because it’s a family business.

@obert #inston, on the other hand, got into the business when he was 6%

years%old after he retired from being an electrician. #hile on the 5ob, he

developed asbestosis and after he settled with the asbestos company, he

went to school to train to be a funeral director. #inston passed his e/ams in

11 and in 12, he opened the Newman%#inston -emorial 'hapel in

-c?eesport, (ennsylvania, with his settlement money.

)he problem was that #inston wasn’t a great businessman. &e was never

really good at collecting the hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to him

and by late *+++, he was in deep financial problems.

0ne steady source of income for #inston came from the -agee%#omen’s

&ospital and #inston’s 5ob was to cremate fetuses and dead newborns.

)he problem was that he would take the money from them and put it

towards other bills. &owever, since he did this, he couldn’t afford to cremate

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the fetuses and the bodies of the infants, so he 5ust stored them in the

funeral home. )hen in -arch *++6, #inston had his license suspended for

three years. No, it wasn’t for storing dead babies and fetuses he was

suspended for running an unlicensed funeral home and he didn’t notify thestate that he was selling prearranged funeral plans.

9ince #inston didn’t have a license, he had no income, and he lost the

funeral home. #hen he was evicted, he moved the bodies and the fetuses

to the garage at his home. In ugust *++$, his e/%wife called the police and

she told them that he may be storing bodies in his garage.

)he police searched the garage and inside they found 13 fetuses thatwere over 1< weeks of gestation, 1$6 fetuses that were under 1< weeks of

gestation, *$2 biohazard containers containing unspecified fetal autopsy

remains, and the remains of 1 newborns that were born alive but died

shortly after birth. (olice believed that all the remains came from the

hospital between *+++ and *++*.

#inston was arrested and charged with 1 counts of abusing a corpse and

theft. &e pleaded guilty and was given probation.

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*The Biomedi+al Tissue Ser,i+es

-ichael -astromarino was a dental surgeon, but he lost his license in *++*

because he was caught using intravenous drugs while he worked on

patients. &is ne/t business venture was his own company called

"iomedical )issue 9ervices which was based in Fort 4ee, New 7ersey, andit was a company that took bones and tissue from corpses to be used for

implants. #hile it may sound grotes:ue, taking bones and tissue from dead

bodies isn’t uncommon. -any people know that doctors can take organs

from people who are already still alive and then transplant the organs into

someone else. #ell, bones and some tissue don’t have the same problem

with immediacy so they can be harvested a few hours after death at funeral

homes. &owever, in order for a company to harvest a body, four basic

conditions must be met. First, they have to have permission from the

deceased andor the family second, the person couldn’t have had any

communicable diseases third, the person couldn’t be too old and finally,

the person can’t be dead longer than 1$%hours.

7ust four common sense rules and -astromarino’s company ignored all of

them. -astromarino used a network of undertakers and he would pay them

a standard fee of about 1,+++ per body. &e would then send a team of

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three people and they would harvest the body. None of the families were

aware that any of this was happening.

0ne notable body that was carved up was the former host of ("9’s

-asterpiece )heater, listair 'ooke. #hen 'ooke died, he was 6 and had

cancer, yet arm and leg bones were taken from his body.

0n each body, -astromarino apparently made 1+,+++ to 1$,+++, and he

illegally harvested bone and tissue from at least 1,+3< bodies. If you do the

math, it’s clear that the grotes:ue scam made -astromarino a multi%

millionaire.

)he problem was that people were getting sick because of the transplants.

7ust a few horrifying e/amples include a *2%year%old man who had surgery

to repair a torn '4. &e was given cadaver cartilage that was harvested 1%

hours after death. 8uring that e/tra time in the dead body, a deadly fungus

formed on the cartilage and when it was transplanted, it infected the man’s

knee. 36%year%old woman got a bone implant in her lower back and she

contracted syphilis from it. 61%year%old man tested positive for &IA and

hepatitis ' after getting a bone implant for a degenerative disk disease. nd

again, those are only a few of the cases. )he true toll of the scam will

probably never be known because -astromarino flooded the market with

possibly tainted bone and tissue and it had been implanted in over 1+,+++

people.

)hings started to fall apart for -astromarino in November *++6, when the

New Cork (olice 8epartment was called into a funeral home that was

formerly owned by one of -astromarino’s funeral directors. fter a lengthy

investigation, they arrested -astromarino, three of his employees, and

three funeral directors in connection with the body harvesting ring.

-astromarino was sentenced to 1! to $6 years in prison and his wife

agreed to pay 6.< million to the families touched by -astromarino’s bone

and tissue network. -astromarino died from metastatic liver cancer in 7uly

*+12 at the age of 6.

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-Walter and Helen %estinikas

In -arch 1!*, 7oseph ?ly, a +%year%old retired coal miner with black lung,

went to a hospital in 9cranton, (ennsylvania, because he was having

problems swallowing. #hile he was in the hospital, he made funeral

arrangements with #alter and &elen (estinikas who owned a local funeral

home. fter his four week stay in the hospital, instead of returning home to

live with his stepson, ?ly went to live with the (estinikases.

)he (estinikases, who were both in their <+s, put ?ly up in a converted

patio area of a defunct bar that they owned in rural 9cranton. )wo and ahalf years later on November 1$, 1!6, ?ly was found dead in the bar. )he

authorities were called and ?ly’s body was taken to the medical e/aminer.

)he authorities also noted that the area where ?ly had lived for two and a

half years was =unfit for human habitation.> Notably, there was no

refrigeration, no sink, and no insulation. lso, human waste was scattered

about the small room.

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?ly’s body was taken to the medical e/aminer and the -B concluded that

?ly had starved to death and had suffered severe dehydration. &e also

hadn’t eaten in the days leading up to his death. &owever, this was pretty

obvious because, at the time of his death, ?ly weighed only <* pounds.

 mazingly, since ?ly had paid for his funeral arraignments with the

(estinikases, the medical e/aminer gave his body back to the couple, and

they buried him. )he police said the family had the final decision when it

came to who would bury the body. ?ly didn’t have many relatives, and the

few he did have couldn’t afford a funeral for him elsewhere, so they decided

to send his withered body to the funeral home that was owned by the

people who slowly starved him to death.

9i/ days after ?ly was reported dead, the police went back to the room

where he had lived out the last two and a half years of his life and found

that the (estinikases had cleaned it and painted the room. )here was also

a walker in the room that wasn’t there before.

)he (estinikases were arrested and they were accused of holding ?ly

captive as they stole his money and starved him to death. #hen ?ly moved

in, he gave &elen (estinikas access to his bank account, which had about

2$,+++ in it, but when he died, there was only $$ remaining in the

account.

)he (estinikases’ defense was that ?ly was old, an anore/ic, he suffered

from black lung, and he had several other medical conditions that could

have contributed to his death. )hey said they did the best they could for him

and he died of natural causes. )hey also claimed the autopsy was botched.

)o refute their claim, ?ly’s body was e/humed in February 1!$ and

another autopsy was performed. Immediately, the medical e/aminer knew

something was wrong. 0n the stomach, there were two types of stitching.

#hen he looked inside the body, he found that the stomach and other

organs had been replaced with ones from someone who had eaten before

their death. )he (estinikases denied swapping organs, so where thehealthier organs came from is a mystery.

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)he (estinikases were found guilty in February 1!3 of third degree murder 

and other charges. "oth of them were given five%to%1+ years in 5ail.

1The Tri.State Crematory S+andal

In 1<, due to his father getting ill, )ommy @ay "rent -arsh left college to

run his family’s business, which was a crematorium that his father had built

in the backyard of the family home in Noble, Georgia. #hile -arsh was

running the )ri%9tate 'rematory, thousands of bodies were sent to him to be

cremated.

In 0ctober *+++, the sheriff’s department got their first report that

something unusual may be happening at the crematorium. gasman

notified them to say that he saw bodies lying around the -arsh property, but

the sheriff’s department never followed up on the tip. 12 months later, the

Bnvironmental (rotection gency was given an anonymous tip that there

were bodies in the woods surrounding the -arsh’s property. )heysupposedly did an investigation, but nothing was found.

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0n February 16, *++*, the police received a call from an anonymous

source saying that while walking their dog in the woods, they found a

human arm bone. )he ne/t day, the police finally went to the crematory and

on their first day, they found 6 bodies that should have been cremated, butweren’t. )hey widened their search and found 226 bodies scattered on and

around the -arsh property. 9ome of them were up to five years old.

If the sheer number of bodies found wasn’t disturbing enough, how the

bodies were =stored> was appalling. 9ome of the bodies were still in their

caskets and in some cases, the caskets were stacked on top of each other.

&owever, many other bodies weren’t in caskets at all and were 5ust strewn

about. 9ome of them were still dressed in hospital gowns, complete with

wrist bands. "odies were found throughout the woods, hidden in nearly

every building on the property, and some were dumped into holes in the

ground.

0f course, since some bodies had been there five years, there were almost

all levels of decomposition. For e/ample, in the garage, police found coffins

with bodies in them stacked on top of each other and even more bodies 5ust

lying around with their fluids leaking out onto the ground.

Needless to say, while -arsh had considerable fewer corpses than @ob

Hombie, -arsh’s home was definitely a lot more terrifying.

 s for why he did it, -arsh’s lawyer said -arsh had mercury poisoning from

the cremation process and it was like he was living in a fog. )he police think

he 5ust got too far behind in his work andor that he never really wanted to

be part of the family business.

-arsh was hit with 3!3 felony charges. )his included 13 counts of abusing

a corpse and 62 counts of theft. -arsh pleaded guilty and he was

sentenced to 1*%years in prison in February *++6. It also cost the county

and the state 1+ million for cleanup and recovery of the bodies. In total,

122 bodies couldn’t be identified.

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Source: http://listverse.com/2016/06/28/10-creepy-stories-from-funeral-homes-

and-crematoriums/