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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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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!
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Men of Mortuaries Calendar
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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
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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.
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Mystery Lingers After Burial |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 30 May 2004 |
GILMER - He left nothing behind but the clothes on his back.
He didn't even have a name, so when they laid his bullet-riddled corpse to rest in Gilmer Cemetery a week ago, they stuck a plate in the ground that reads "John Doe, 16 May 2004."
It was the first such burial here in as long as Cheryl Beal Thomas, a lifelong Gilmer resident and pastor, can remember.
The pastor, a local mortician, and some chirping birds were the only ones singing dirges at 4 p.m. on that bright, humid Sunday. The community where John Doe died knows him only by an artist's sketch.
Gunned down in December, weighted with concrete blocks in an Upshur County pond, discovered in March and buried in a pauper's grave in May, no one seems to know exactly who he is or why he's dead - or if they do, they're not talking.
"I was told by different people to just leave him in the bag," said Gary Jackson, the mortician. "I said 'Nope, I better go ahead and put him in a casket, just in case he's exhumed.'"
There are roughly 600 unidentified bodies across the state, but this one is unusual if only because it's a small town, no one has offered any tips on John Doe's identity, and the man and woman jailed and allegedly connected with his death won't offer much help.
William Glenn Bulington Jr. is in the Upshur County Jail on $3 million bond, charged with gunning down a second man at the time John Doe was killed.
Keith Allen Crutcher, 44, of Ore City was found in the pond alongside John Doe.
Ruby Marie Tate of Longview was released on $7,500 bond, charged with tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony, after telling investigators she watched Bulington shoot the two men and helped him dump the bodies.
"They ain't ever told us what his first name was or told us anything else," said Lt. Wayne Young of the Upshur County Sheriff's Department.
While his grave marker says "John Doe," Ms. Thomas said she refers to him as "unidentified body," because "God knows who he is."
"We placed a flower on his grave," Ms. Thomas said, "because - think about your family member, your brother, sister, father, being murdered."
"I just asked God to watch over his soul," she said. "I asked God to help his family find whoever he is. Basically about his soul, though. Because you don't really know whether he was right with the Lord or not. Prayed for forgiveness ... You don't ever know."
According to an arrest affidavit, Ms. Tate described a less-than-forgiving end for the two men.
She "stated she observed (Bulington) shoot the black male subject in the head and shoot the white male subject as he was running toward the back door of the house," the affidavit states.
Crutcher is white. John Doe was described as a black man, 5-6, 142 pounds.
Preliminary autopsy results show both men were shot multiple times, possibly with a .22-caliber rifle. Authorities have not recovered a weapon.
Ms. Tate said the shootings happened in December at a house Bulington once lived in on Texas Highway 155 north of Gilmer. The bodies remained in the pond until a pair of fishermen discovered them in March.
Sheriff's investigators have not commented on a motive in the slayings, but Crutcher's former sister-in-law, Tina Crutcher, says the deaths were drug-related.
"He'd been shooting up since he was 12 years old," Ms. Crutcher said about her slain relative.
"I know on the news they built him up to be some kind of saint - an antiques dealer. He was good to me, but I also knew his habits."
She said Crutcher did sell antiques from his house at one time, did iron work by commission, and was generally "a really nice guy." She said he left behind two daughters, a teenager and a 22-year-old, though he claimed neither of them.
Little information was available about Bulington, who investigators said is not speaking with authorities.
District Attorney Mike Fetter said Bulington and Ms. Tate have not been indicted because his office is waiting on expert testimony to put before a grand jury.
As for John Doe, "there's people that seem to indicate that they had seen him or met him, but didn't have a name," Fetter said. "Of course we've kept his DNA and we have the photographs, so there's still ways to identify him if someone makes an inquiry."
In the meantime, he'll rest here, where Jackson and Ms. Thomas sang "Jesus Keeps Me Near the Cross," and where no one else came to say goodbye.
Still, that didn't stop Jackson from taking extra care when applying a preservative powder: "I know they're probably gonna disinter him someday, because somebody's gonna come forward."
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11824322&BRD=1994&PAG=461&dept_id=341384&rfi=6 |
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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
Quote Repository
“Death is but a passage. It is not a house, it is only a vestibule. The grave has a door on its inner side.” Alexander Maclauren
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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