Pappy Pours & Funeral Theory | 4M #220

Pappy Pours & Funeral Theory | 4M #220

Welcome to the two-hundred-and-twentieth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #220, 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!

Not the Pappy!!

Bourbon enthusiasts are up in arms about a recent episode of Paramount’s Landman drama series — and some of us get it. We’ll be a bit vague to avoid spoiling the plot, but basically, in this episode a recently widowed character, played by Demi Moore, visits her late husband’s grave on their wedding anniversary — and pours out a bottle of his beloved Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Family Reserve on the plot. This is a bottle so rare and revered that it boasts a $4,000-plus price tag on the secondary market … and now it’s gone. 

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Deathcare docket

Yes, it’s back again this week. We would say “enjoy …” but no one enjoys this kind of news:

• New allegations have surfaced in the ongoing investigation of a Houston funeral home owner. A new search warrant alleges “possible fraud and tampering with a corpse.” This is on top of charges of operating without a license and forgery.
• The former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue and his wife who were charged with stealing and selling body parts that were donated to the school for research were both sentenced last week. The husband will spend eight years in prison, while his wife, who “assisted” him in this nasty and horrific business, was sentenced to just over one year.
• The Hallfords, another husband and wife team who have absolutely no regard or respect for the sanctity of human remains, agreed to plea deals to state charges last week. Jon and Carrie Hallford, who let 190 bodies decompose at their Return to Nature facility in Penrose, Colorado in 2023, may spend 25 to 50 years in prison if the judge accepts the deals. Families are calling for nearly 200-year sentences — one year for each of the bodies they mishandled.

But there’s some good news, too!

Not all news is negative when it comes to deathcare and the legal system this week. A South Dakota funeral home and one of its directors recently faced a lawsuit by a deceased man’s biological daughter alleging the funeral home violated state law by prioritizing stepchildren’ wishes over hers for her father’s burial, causing emotional distress. However, last week a federal jury sided with the funeral home and director, finding they were not liable, as they argued the director followed the decedent’s perceived wishes and the daughter’s estrangement from her father.

Thanks again, TikTok.

Don’t you love it (she writes sarcastically) when a member of the younger generation “invents” something that actually isn’t that new? (Looking at you, girl who says she brought the “new” trend of pinch-rolled jeans to the US from France.) So, “Funeral theory” is now making the rounds on TikTok. Basically, the viral post explains that “at the average funeral, only ten people cry,” so why should you spend your whole life trying to please others? Even the Today Show picked this up. First of all, where did that stat come from? (Probably not the NFDA.) Also, if everyone were to think this way, wouldn’t it make people be less kind to each other? 

It’s not that unusual

Mental Floss published a list of “12 Strange & Unique Colleges” last week — and a mortuary school was number one. Now, the fact that a school specializes in preparing individuals for a very legitimate and highly respected career is included in a list of colleges where clothing is optional (Reed College in Portland, Oregon), meditation is expected (Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado), or undergrads are assigned more than 200 classical texts (St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland) is kind of weird. Other schools on the list include a “cannabis college” where students learn the growing (lol) business side of marijuana, an Italian school that educates fledgling gelato producers, and a tattoo institute. The future is bright, my friends.