Vile Voyeurs & Frozen Funeral Directors | 4M #24
Welcome to the twenty-fourth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 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!
LAST DAY!!
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A Slack of Morals
Former Ohio funeral director Richard Slack was indicted on February 23 for allegedly taping women and children (!) for sexual gratification. According to reports, Slack hid cameras in the restroom of his funeral home and secretly videotaped female adults and children in various states of undress. He’s charged with 10 counts of first-degree misdemeanor voyeurism and 11 counts of a second-degree felony illegal use of a minor or impaired person in nudity-oriented material or performance (child pornography). The incidents allegedly took place in 2015 and again in 2019. In a statement, Slack’s former business partner said the two parted ways in 2021.
She’ll Be as Cold as Ice but She’s Willing to Sacrifice …
McKenzie Mullen-Burkart, funeral director at Worlein Funeral Home in Austin, Minnesota, will take the frunge on March 5 for charity. What’s a “frunge,” you might ask? It’s short for Frigid, Frozen, Plunge, a fundraiser requiring participants to jump into a frozen lake. But it’s for an amazing purpose: A week-long camp run by deathcare professionals and volunteers to help children and families deal with grief and loss. Mullen-Burkart’s boss, Worlein’s owner Tyler Hoff, is also taking the frunge. Kudos to both these brave souls! (BTW, Kudos to anyone who recognized the reference to Foreigner lyrics from 1977!)
Cremation: The Novel
You might think a book called “Cremation” might have a little something to do with deathcare. Alas, it does not. Instead, “Cremation is a post-Franco epic about a family involved in the real estate boom along the Mediterranean coastline of Spain. It is a study of hyper-capitalism presented in poetic prose, and it puts the reader in a constantly unnerved position trying to sort the reasonable from the absurd.” So if you’re looking for a little non-deathcare light reading, this probably isn’t what you’re looking for.
Looking So Long at These Pictures of You
You may have seen this service before, but last week a press release for Portraits at Need caught our attention. It’s a pretty cool concept — a family gives you a photo, you upload it to Portraits at Need, and they crop out the background and other subjects and retouch the image for use in obituaries or portraits. They can even colorize and restore old black-and-white pictures. Neat, huh? (And who recognized the old school The Cure lyrics, hmmm?)
FAKE NEWS!!!!!
Fake news, misinformation, opposing viewpoints, call it whatever you want- it’s everywhere! In fact, we’ve even heard people say, “live streaming funeral services is so difficult!”
Well well well, Get some mustard and a little bit of bread, cause that’s bologna!
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