Sadly, the most prominent story of the week was the on air shooting deaths of Virgina news reporter, Alison Parker and her cameraman, Adam Ward. Also in the news were the odd and disturbing stories of a woman’s body being stolen from a funeral home and a young Honduran girl who may not have been dead when she was buried.
Weekly News 8/28/2015: Alison Parker and Adam Ward memorialized
Service Pays Tribute to Slain WDBJ Journalists Alison Parker and Adam Ward
Aug 30, 2015–nbcnews.com: Community religious leaders gathered Sunday to remember 24-year-old reporter Alison Parker and 27-year-old cameraman Adam Ward, the two television journalists who were shot and killed while working last week. The interfaith service at the Jefferson Center in Roanoke was filled with somber prayers across several religions, along with music from the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and others… Read the full story
Cops Suspect ‘Obsessed’ Man of Stealing Julie Mott’s Body: Report
Aug 27, 2015–nbcnews.com: Texas police are trying to find whoever sneaked into a San Antonio funeral home and stole the body of a 25-year-old woman — and the prime suspect may be an “obsessed” young man who attended her services… Read the full story
Caring for the Dying: Hospice comforts both patients and families
Aug 27, 2015–nhmagazine.com: Americans don’t do death very well. Despite our proclivity for violent movies and television, we shy away from death when it’s the real thing. “We are in a society in which we don’t talk about death and dying. We don’t admit that any of us is going to die, and we’re always shocked to hear that there’s nothing more that can be done [for a dying person],” says Lois Ferguson, MS, RN, hospice director at Rockingham Visiting Nurse Association & Hospice… Read the full story
Singer and sausage magnate, Jimmy Dean is buried in a 9 and a half foot long, grand piano shaped mausoleum on the banks of the James River at his Virginia Estate.
5 Of History’s Most Outrageous Funerals, Because Sometimes A Send-Off Isn’t What You’d Expect
Aug 26, 2015–bustle.com: Unless you’re a member of the Addams Family, you probably don’t get too excited about the idea of a funeral. In fact, you probably hope pretty regularly that you don’t have to attend one anytime soon. At their best, funerals are full of awkward air kisses and reminders of your own mortality while you try to be sad at the passing of an old, distant relative… Read the full story
How This Woman Went From Socialite to Funeral Planner
Aug 25, 2015–cosmopolitan.com: At 21 years old, Elizabeth Meyer was living the life, partying at the hottest Manhattan clubs and flying to Europe on the weekends. But when she was a junior in college, her father suddenly passed away, leaving her not only grieving his death but also unsure about what to do next. Bored with traditional funeral services, Meyer jumped into what she knew well — party planning — and threw a large celebration of her father’s life, including Rolling Stones music and thousands of dollars’ worth of her mother’s favorite flowers… Read the full story
> Related:Socialite turns funeral director: let the laughs begin
Dead teenager ‘wakes up in grave in Honduras’ – only to then ‘die in hospital’
Aug 25, 2015–telegraph.co.uk: A teenage girl in Honduras had mistakenly been buried alive and apparently woke up in her coffin, only to die before she was freed.
Footage shows frantic relatives smashing into the concrete tomb of recently buried Neysi Perez, 16, after they said they heard her screaming from inside. She had been buried the previous day. When they opened the coffin, Perez was dead. But according to relatives, she was still warm and had bruises on her fingertips. The glass viewing pane on her coffin had been smashed… Read the full story
Lunar Burials Are a Real Thing That Exist
Aug 24, 2015–jezebel.com: Now you can save your loved ones the stress of planning your funeral by having your remains sent to the moon. A company called Elysium Space has created small metallic cubes that can hold cremated remains. They will launch clusters of these cubes into outer space, where they will soft land on the moon’s surface. So, when you say goodbye to this earthly plane, you can now literally leave it… Read the full story
DNA Samples Offer Survivors Possible Medical Benefits, Chance To Memorialize The Dead
Aug 23, 2015–swtimes.com: DNA collection companies have found a niche in the death care industry. The process of DNA collection after death but before embalming or cremation enables the grieving to keep a family member’s DNA long after that person’s passing. That can offer potential medical benefits, professionals say. Unlike an urn of ashes or other keepsake, the sample can be tested to learn about family history, including ancestry and predisposition to genetic diseases… Read the full story
Skydivers at funeral honor Army Golden Knights parachutist killed in Chicago air show accident
Aug 22, 2015–chicago.suntimes.com: A solo Army Golden Knights parachutist honored a comrade’s dream by landing on the high school football field where hundreds of mourners gathered for his funeral Saturday, a week after he was involved in a deadly accident at the Chicago Air and Water Show. The military skydiver, joined by a team of professionals, fulfilled the wish of U.S. Army Master Sgt. Corey Hood, who had long wanted to parachute on to the field where he played as a youth… Read the full story
Talking About Death – When Do We Begin?
Aug 21, 2015–huffingtonpost.com: Death showed up at my door at a rather young age. I was entering my early 20’s, where life was nearly beginning and death was just a foggy, distant thought. Aside from that one time when I made my childhood acting debut in a funeral education video, I hadn’t really paid death much attention. The other time I recall being curious about death was during the infrequent and brief drives past the cemetery, when my siblings and I would hold our breath out of fear of the old urban legend… Read the full story
