Welcome to the two-hundred-and-forty-sixth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #246, 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!
#OpenToWork?
Will the embalming profession soon go the way of milkmen, switchboard operators, and soda jerks? A Texas radio station suspects that might be the case … I think. Here’s what KLAQ-FM wrote in a blog post titled “Jobs that no longer exist in El Paso”: “Jobs Diminished: Embalmer for example. Prepping a dead body for burial requires a process known as embalming. (I know, I used to work at a funeral home. I like radio WAYYY better.) I’m not sure exactly when funeral directors gave up on this but, these days, most if not all embalming procedures are farmed out to companies that do nothing but embalming.” Not sure about the logic here — or the accuracy, for that matter.
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Was it worth it?
We all love a great meal or a fun vacation (or, for some, a night at a gentleman’s club), but would we truly think it was ok to use our employer’s credit card to foot the bills? Former cemetery manager David Eslinger did, and in March 2025 he pleaded guilty to grand larceny in the third degree and identity theft in the first degree after being accused of issuing extra paychecks to himself and using the New York cemetery’s credit card to rack up personal — and indulgent — expenses. A plea deal offered him the option of paying back half of the $40k amount he stole plus four years of probation, and he’d still be responsible for repaying the balance. But when Eslinger’s deadline expired, and he had only paid $12k and also didn’t show up for court, he was tracked down and thrown in jail, where he could spend the next four to twelve years.
Training them young
Houston police have shared a video of a woman breaking into glass-fronted niches in a local mausoleum and stealing jewelry and valuable mementos. While the crime of stealing from the dead is horrific enough, this thief added an extra element of shamelessness to her crime by bringing a toddler along on her crime spree. Surveillance video clearly shows a very young little girl walking around the mausoleum as the woman picks locks.
Sound it out
Are you familiar with the Pidgin language? It’s described as a simplified or makeshift language used for basic communication between two groups who don’t share a native tongue. Well, in 2017, the BBC created BBC News Pidgin for readers in West and Central Africa; it delivers news in a combination of English and the local languages used in those regions. And, honestly, when you sound it out, it actually kind of makes sense, even if you’ve never read one word of Nigerian and Cameroonian. Here’s an excerpt from an article about a Ghanaian mortician, which is titled “‘Why you gatz say sorry to deadi bodi if you mistakenly step on am’ – Mortician” (I kid you not).
Ewurabena wey dey live for mortuary say her aim for di industry na to help families of pipo wey don kpai give dia loved ones befitting burial.
“Pipo die anytime. So wen dem die, pipo dey fear to keep dem for house till morning. So around 2am, around 12, pesin fit just come knock your door and wake you up say dem don bring deadi bodi.
“Pipo dey come wit dia eyes open. Becos wen dem die, pipo dey fear to close am back. Some pipo dey come wit dia mouth still open. Dat na di part wey dey scary. But apart from dat, you no dey see anytin,” she tok.
About di myths around ghosts, she say: “Sometimes you go go pick bodi from somwia, you go take am to anoda destination, you no go see wia to sleep, at di end of di day, you go sleep inside car. You no go see any ghost.
