Welcome to the two-hundred-and-eighteenth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #218, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!
Bone-headed brass bandit
A Pennsylvania man who is being held on a $5 million bond for “allegedly” stealing and selling brass mausoleum doors is expected to plead guilty to felony theft and trespassing charges in 2026 under a new plea agreement. It’s a pretty good bet that he did the deed, as this mausoleum mastermind actually provided scrap dealers with his actual contact info and kept photos of himself with some of the $180k worth of brass, which he stole from five cemeteries in five counties and sold for less than $11k.
Funeral Homes Across America Trust Treasured Memories
From caskets to credit card processing, from outreach to memorial keepsakes — Treasured Memories brings together the industry’s leading providers under one roof. If you’re already using two or more (and chances are you are), you’re leaving rewards on the table.
Trusted by hundreds of funeral homes nationwide, Treasured Memories has become the go-to rewards network for owners looking to make their operations more profitable. Every month, members receive detailed point statements, so you know exactly what you’ve earned and how to use it.
Whether you reinvest in supplies, redeem for cash value, or let your points build, the choice is yours. Don’t miss out on benefits your peers are already taking advantage of.
A super clean headstone
Remember Billy Mays, the uber-enthusiastic pitchman for the Oxi Clean line of cleaning products? Mays passed away in 2009, but his son, Billy Mays III, recently posted a viral photo that proves that the elder Mays left an indelible mark (the kind that even Oxi products can’t erase) on his fans.
This week’s deathcare docket
Reports of deathcare-related crimes and legal issues should not become a weekly 4M feature, yet, here we are:
- The owner of a California pet cremation business that was abruptly shut down this summer was arrested last week on charges of grand theft. Pet owners were horrified to learn that authorities found more than 4,000 pounds of animal remains on the property, meaning that this owner never performed the promised and paid-for cremation services.
- The situation for the Michigan funeral director whom we mentioned in last week’s 4M as being charged with embezzlement is getting worse, as it was reported that the funds he allegedly stole were intended for the burials of wards of the state.
- A now-former funeral director in the UK is has been “caught with hundreds of indecent images, including images of child abuse, bestiality and ‘sexual interference with corpses’.”
- South Carolina’s state funeral board has voted to “permanently revoke the funeral director’s license of Cody Anderson, former owner of George Funeral Home, who was sentenced Sept. 15 on federal charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.”
- A December sentencing on a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for Carie Hallford, one awful half of the couple behind Colorado’s 2023 Return to Nature crimes, has been rescheduled for March.
