Cemetery Sword Fighting & a Bevy of Bills | 4M #234
Welcome to the two-hundred-and-thirty-fourth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #234, 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!
Swashbuckling in the cemetery?
A North Carolina man was arrested after damaging several headstones in a local cemetery. He didn’t drive his car over the plots; nor did he kick over old, fragile markers or tag them with spray paint. No, he attacked, defaced, and desecrated the markers with two swords. It’s not clear if he was channeling his inner pirate or challenging the gravestones to a duel, but the damage was done, and he’s facing 14 felony charges. Aaarrrrgh.
Secure Online Identity Verification
When a family can’t come to your funeral home in person, online identification is sometimes the only option, — but emailing photos isn’t secure (and it’s repeat-viewable).
Secure View gives you a safer, documented way to confirm identity online:
- Upload the photo securely
- Send a password-protected link for a limited-time view
- The next of kin verifies themselves by uploading a government-issued ID
- You receive confirmation documentation for your records
If you want to see how it works (and how it helps safeguard your funeral home), watch the quick demo.
Finally, closure
The family (and the employer) of a 58-year-old funeral director who died on the job in 2023 can hopefully find a bit of comfort and closure knowing that it was a tragic accident that took her life, and not foul play. Sally Blundell was working alone with a hydraulic scissor lift in December 2023 when a fault in the device caused it to unexpectedly descend, trapping Blundell in the process. Last week a coroner’s court jury ruled her death accidental, ending a prolonged inquest. Although Blundell’s employer immediately stopped using that specific model of trolley, the coroner is also considering sending a “prevention of future deaths” report to the manufacturer.
Not a peaceful protest
There are always plenty of people who are unhappy with one aspect of the government or another. Some of those choose to express their dissatisfaction through a form of peaceful protest, while some resort to violence. Then you have people like Michael Fry of Bartonville, Texas, who found an unusually disconcerting, diabolical, and horrifically disrespectful way to send a message. Fry allegedly “wanted the FBI to intervene in what he said was wrongdoing by Denton County officials from a past arrest.” To get the FBI’s attention, he visited cemeteries in Texas and Oklahoma, stole an urn with cremated remains and a casket containing the ancient remains of a once-prominent citizen, and threw a bucket containing some of those remains over a fence protecting the FBI field office in Dallas, Texas. He was apprehended, though, after filming himself committing the crime and also asking his mom for money to “rent a UHaul to move a body.”
Hustling through the House
Speaking of the government … Legislators in several states were working hard last week to get bills processed through their respective channels before their respective deadlines, including some bills that pertain to deathcare:
- Oklahoma’s House has passed HB3660, a bill “to legalize the use of composted human bodies as fertilizer” (a.k.a. Natural organic reduction)
- The Illinois State House also passed a bill to legalize NOR on to the Senate
- House Bill 1750, “Holding Funeral Homes Accountable for Pet Cremations,” which would regulate the pet cremation industry, passed in Pennsylvania
- The District of Columbia Council Committee on Health heard testimony about the embalmers’ licensing challenges created by B26-0047 Funeral Directors Licensing Reform Amendment Act of 2025.
- A Minnesota representative introduced bill HF84, which would allow morticians from other states to practice there, even if they don’t have the four-year mortuary science degree required of Minnesota deathcare professionals.
