Taphophilia.(dot) Com - Professors receive right to exhume body in 127-year-old unmarked grave

Welcome

Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.

What's at Taph?

Taphophilia Home

Thanatology Forums

Taphophile Weblinks

Taph's Article Archive

Contact Deadgirl

Donating to Taphophilia

Book Library

Deadgirl Recommends

Dig Deeper

Literature

Topics at Taphophilia

Deadgirl's Dictionary

Cemetery Photography

Industry News

Carved in Stone

A Taphophilia Thank You...

Taphophilia (dot) Com would not be possible without the knowledge, experience and talent of DarkestWeb. From
its conception and early development, DarkestWeb
was faced with many challenges; from inspiring and motivating, to providing guidance and direction. The continued dedication and support has produced results greater than ever expected, and for this, I owe a huge debt of gratitude.

Cemetery Snapshot

Announcements

Graveyards of Chicago:
The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski. Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!

Green-Wood Cemetery Arcadia Publishing announces the release of Alexandra Mosca's historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery and to browse other available titles!

Men of Mortuaries Calendar
To purchase your 2008 calendar, learn more about the KAMMCARES Foundation, or to be featured in the 2009 calendar, please visit Men of Mortuaries.

Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.

Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman is now
available. Please visit
Studio Indiana for more information.

West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.

Professors receive right to exhume body in 127-year-old unmarked grave

Written by DeadGirl
Saturday, 01 April 2006
By Eric Weslander Saturday, April 1, 2006 Ideally, it will be an intact skull. “Hopefully, we’ll expose a beautiful face — a skull, that’s what we’re hoping for,” anthropologist Dennis Van Gerven said Friday after a judge approved his request to dig up a 127-year-old grave in Lawrence to determine the identity of the remains inside. “It could be dust ... (or) it could be a very well-preserved skeleton.” Van Gerven, a University of Colorado anthropology professor, and colleague Marianne Wesson, a CU law professor, couldn’t hide their excitement Friday after Douglas County District Court Judge Paula Martin granted their request to exhume a body in an unmarked grave at Lawrence’s Oak Hill Cemetery. The professors hope to determine as soon as next month whether the person in the grave is John Hillmon or Frederick A. Walters — a century-old controversy that led to the creation of an important piece of federal evidence law in the late 1800s. The dig likely will happen in mid-May. Martin gave her approval with the professors’ pledge that the remains would be returned to the grave within 48 hours and that the process would be handled in a dignified way. Van Gerven said crews would dig only two feet into the ground with heavy machinery. From that point on, a team will dig by hand — carefully sifting through each layer until they spot the coffin. They’ll remove the bones — if there are any — and take them to a lab on the Kansas University campus, where they’ll clean and photograph them. Van Gerven said that if the skull was in good enough shape, he would be able to take a photo of it and superimpose it on photographs to see which man it matches. He said the bony bridge of Hillmon’s nose was distinctively different from Walters’. If there’s only dust in the grave, a small sample will be taken for DNA testing. At the time of Hillmon’s death in 1879, life insurance companies suspected Hillmon of fraud. They alleged he and a companion had killed a third man — Walters — to collect on Hillmon’s life insurance. The case was tried six times and taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court twice. The court’s first ruling created an exception to the “hearsay” rule that allows out-of-court statements by third parties to be used as evidence if they describe the intentions of the speaker or the writer. The piece of evidence in question was a letter that lent support to the theory that it wasn’t Hillmon in the grave. Wesson said she believed the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the letter was based partly on the justices’ belief that Hillmon was not dead — and that the court had wanted the letter admitted to help prove it. Scholars will view the court’s decision differently, she said, if it turns out to have been Hillmon all along. http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/apr/01/professors_receive_right_exhume_body_127yearold_un/?city_local

< Prev		Next >

[ Back ]

SEO by Artio

Taphophilia?

taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)

ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"

DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries