Finding some measure of peace
Vol. 2, Issue 26
"There was no hope in death, only an end." --Morgan Rhodes, "Rebel Spring"
NEWS & NOTES
Bad operators in the death industry
One of the owners of a Colorado funeral home, who stored nearly 190 dead and decaying bodies in an old building and sent fake ashes to the grieving families, is going to prison.
Jon Hallford ran the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colo., with his wife, Carie Hallford. After neighbors reported smelling a foul odor, authorities discovered the corpses, stacked on top of each other, in a decrepit, bug-infested structure.
Once the remains were found, the funeral home's customers learned their loved ones hadn't been cremated and that they had received dry concrete mix instead of ashes. In at least two cases, the wrong body was buried.
Federal prosecutors accused the Hallfords of using pandemic aid, along with customers’ payments, to buy pricy goods/services and to invest in cryptocurrency.
“Jon Hallford’s criminal fraud was a vehicle to exploit grieving families so he could give himself a lavish life with luxury cars and expensive vacations,” said U.S. Attorney Peter McNeilly. “His actions were not just fraudulent, but deeply inhumane. We offer our condolences to the families who continue to suffer because of Mr. Hallford’s crimes and we hope this case brings them some measure of peace.”
Jon Hallford pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal court last year. On June 27, he received the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for cheating customers and defrauding the government out of nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 aid, and was ordered to pay back over $1 million. He also pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court and will be sentenced for those crimes in August.
Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial in federal court this fall. She's also been charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse by the state. The couple has been ordered to pay $950 million to the families whose loved ones' remains were mishandled.
FMI: Click here.
Bringing new life to an old burial ground
The once-abandoned Mount Vernon Cemetery in North Philadelphia was listed on Zillow last year for $1 million. The 26-acre burial ground, containing 33,000 dead tenants and a "green inferno" of poison ivy, eventually sold to Edward Bixby for... $1.
Bixby, who owns 14 cemeteries in six states, agreed to the Mount Vernon sale, knowing it would cost between $350,000 to $400,000 to clean the property. In addition, he asked that all liens and encumbrances against the cemetery be cleared before he took ownership.
Now, Bixby has big plans for the burial grounds that date back to 1856. He is going to create a hybrid cemetery by cleaning and preserving the existing grounds and providing additional space for green burial sites. He also intends to create walking trails through the cemetery, thus making it a place for mourning and a park for the community.
FMI: Click here.
A man reads his own obituary
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NOTABLE OBITS
* Liverpool FC and Portugal forward Diogo Jota and his brother, fellow soccer player André Silva, died in a car crash. Jota was 28 and Silva was 25. Early in his career, Jota played for Paços de Ferreira, Atlético Madrid and the Wolverhampton Wanderers. He signed with Liverpool in 2020 and went on to score 65 goals in 182 games for the Reds. Silva was a midfielder for the Liga Portugal 2 squad Penafiel. (Chuck Schilken, Los Angeles Times)
* Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, 89, has died. The flashy trainer with a network of stables across the U.S. may have worn a white Stetson and mirrored aviator glasses, but he was also a workhorse, up seven days a week at 3 a.m. to care for his next colt or filly. Lukas dominated quarter-horse racing in the 1970s, winning 15 Triple Crown races and a record 20 Breeders’ Cup events. He also mentored several top trainers, including Todd Pletcher and Kiaran McLaughlin. (Harrison Smith, The Washington Post)
* Character actor Michael Madsen, who frequently collaborated with director Quentin Tarantino, died at 67. During his five-decade Hollywood career, Madsen acted in hundreds of films. He was best known for playing antagonists, in particular Mr. Blonde in "Reservoir Dogs" and Budd in the "Kill Bill" films. “Nobody wants to put me in a suit and a tie and have me sit in an office, let alone give me love scenes. People are a lot more comfortable when I have a cigarette in my mouth and a gun in my hand,” he told The Times in 2008. Madsen was also a photographer, screenwriter, producer and poet. (Alexandra Del Rosario, Los Angeles Times)
* Australian actor Julian McMahon, who starred in the TV shows "Charmed," "Nip/Tuck" and "FBI: Most Wanted," died. He was 56. McMahon broke into acting in the Australian soap operas "The Power, the Passion" and "Home and Away." His work led him to the U.S., where he appeared in the NBC soap "Another World," followed by the above-mentioned prime-time programs. On the big screen, he was best known for playing Doctor Doom in “Fantastic Four” (2005) and its sequel, “Rise of the Silver Surfer” (2007). (Jack Dunn, Variety)
* Alla Osipenko, a Russian prima ballerina, died at 92. Osipenko was one of the last pupils of renowned ballet teacher Agrippina Vaganova. She joined the Soviet-era Kirov Ballet in 1950 and was a favorite partner of famed dancers Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev and Yuri Soloviev. Osipenko performed in Europe to wide acclaim and even won Paris' Pavlova Prize; however, her diva behavior and refusal to join the Communist Party rankled officials and they punished her for more than a decade by revoking permission to participate in international tours. In later years, Osipenko worked as a dance teacher in the U.S. and Russia. (Joel Lobenthal, The Washington Post)
* Hall of Fame outfielder Dave Parker, 74, has died. Nicknamed "the Cobra," the 6-foot-5 Parker debuted in 1973 and played for 11 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was the NL MVP in 1978 and a member of the 1979 World Championship team. Parker won another championship in 1989 with the Oakland Athletics. He was set to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this month. (John Perrotto, The Associated Press)
* Charlene Roberts-Hayden, a pioneering Black woman in computer programming, died at 86. Roberts-Hayden graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1960 and became proficient at a high level in the computer language known as Ada. Named after Ada Lovelace, who was considered the first computer programmer, Ada was used in air traffic control, military systems and space technology. At defense contractor GTE Government Services, Roberts-Hayden was one of only a few Black women working in computer programming, but due to the nature of the business, her projects were always kept secret. She also made a lot less than her mostly white male counterparts. (Bryan Marquard, The Boston Globe)
* Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart died at 90. Swaggart joined the Pentecostal movement as a child and claimed to speak in tongues at the age of eight. Swaggart was 17 when he wed a 15-year-old girl; and at 25, he was ordained as a minister by the Assemblies of God. Swaggart took his fire-and-brimstone sermonizing to radio/television during the 1970s and 1980s, which helped him to connect with an audience in more than 140 countries. But Swaggart's fall from grace began in 1987 when he was spotted entering a New Orleans motel with a sex worker. Although he gave a tearful mea culpa ("I have sinned!"), his denomination defrocked him. Swaggart was caught by police with another prostitute in 1991. (Chris Willman, Variety and David Stout, The New York Times)
* Actress and musician Renée Victor died at 86. Victor launched her entertainment career in music, performing alongside Latin artists Xavier Cugat and Perez Prado, and singing with her husband as the duo "Ray & Renée." Victor then hosted "Pacesetters," a show on the Los Angeles TV station KTLA that spotlighted the Chicano movement. Turning to acting, she began auditioning in earnest and landed roles on numerous TV shows, including "Scarecrow and Mrs. King," "Matlock" and "Weeds." Victor also found work in voice acting and was best known for playing Aubelita in the hit Pixar animated film "Coco." (McKinley Franklin, The Hollywood Reporter)
FAMOUS DEATHS IN HISTORY
On July 7, German-Swiss industrialist Henri Nestlé (75), Swiss author Johanna Spyri (74) and English singer/songwriter Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd) (60)
On July 8, English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (29), British actress Vivien Leigh (53) and former first lady Betty Ford (93)
On July 9, former President Zachary Taylor (65), businessman/politician Ross Perot (89) and actor Rip Torn (88)
On July 10, French inventor/photographer Louis-Jacques Daguerre (63), professor/author Clement Clarke Moore (83) and voice actor Mel Blanc (81)
On July 11, English actor Laurence Olivier (82), video game designer Satoru Iwata (55) and actor Charlie Robinson (75)
On July 12, former first lady Dolley Madison (81), trumpeter Benny Carter (95) and comics writer Harvey Pekar (70)
On July 13, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (47), former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (80) and Chinese writer/human rights activist/Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo (61)
On July 14, French cyclist Octave Lapize (29), former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Adlai Stevenson II (65) and businesswoman/socialite Ivana Trump (73)
RECOMMENDED SUBSTACK
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
"Well, Jan, we were lucky at that." --Journalist Edward R. Murrow, patting the hand of his wife, Janet Huntington Brewster
MOMENT OF GRATITUDE
Thanks to Syda Productions, CBS News Colorado, Investigation Discovery, YouTube, The Denver Gazette, the U.S. Attorney's Office/District of Colorado, NPR, The Associated Press, Find a Grave, WHYY, Hidden City/Philadelphia, The Friends of Mount Vernon Cemetery, Instagram, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Apple News, WMUR-TV, The Written Word, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, Variety, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, SeFija!, The Hollywood Reporter, Cajano, On This Day, Playback.FM, Britannica: This Day in History, Time and Date, Wikipedia, A Bit of Good News, Mourning Mom Time Travels, Canva and Deposit Photos for art and story suggestions.
KEEP IN TOUCH
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Thank you for sharing this post about death, lives lost and whether you truly rest in peace after burial or cremation. I'm excited to read your Substack. I feel that people don't talk about death in the United States. After my daughter Alix died relatives and friends stopped mentioning her and erased her. I still bring her up and I'm glad to discover your Substack features stories of death. I just subscribed and recommended The End Files! I appreciate that you recommended my Substack in this post! With gratitude, Julie