A former superintendent of the Cortland Rural Cemetery has been charged with three felony counts of grave robbery, obstruction of justice, and filing a false instrument to obtain an export license. After a preliminary hearing on a bill of information, he was released on $100,000 bail and his passport was revoked. The name of the suspect and a court date for his trial were not released.
Cortland County District Attorney Sue Benn said that the man and an unknown accomplice dug up recently buried bodies and sent the bodies to Sicily, where they were mummified, misrepresented as Christ-era saints, and sold to Catholic churches throughout Italy. Ultimately, the ghouls netted $80,000 for each whole body.
"We have evidence that it was a Mafia operation from start to finish," said DA Sue Benn. "We were tipped off by an informer. We have notified the families of the deceased. One of the bodies has been located at a church in Milan. Worshipers at the church thought the mummified body was Saint James, although the remains of Saint James are actually located in Santiago de Compostela in Spain.The body will be returned to Cortland. Italian authorities are still looking for the other two bodies, and have requested Vatican assistance to recover them."
An Italian government spokesman said that the other two bodies were marketed as Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Major Italian newspapers, magazines and television and radio networks have virtually ignored the story because similar stories appear almost daily in small local newspapers throughout Italy.
A former Cortland mayor, who requested anonymity because he is a suspect in at least one unrelated case, said:
"Nothing like this ever happened while I was mayor. I consider it a matter of grave concern.You can be sure the FBI is investigating."
DA Sue Benn expressed regret and sympathy for the deceased victims and their families.
"I am withholding the identities of the three stolen bodies with due respect for the families of the deceased. My office is pursuing leads to bring the money-grubbing ghoul's accomplice to justice."
Readers who believe this story about the dead could be resurrected by music, please click on YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj2qJx2_0EQ.
Readers who think this story should be buried permanently, please skip the music and write an obituary as a comment.
Hello there... My name is John Hoeschele, and I am the current President of the Cortland Rural Cemetery Board of Trustees. I happened upon your blog post on Google. While I respect your 1st Amendment Rights and even appreciate the tongue in cheek tone of your writing, I am writing to respectfully request that you consider taking this particular blog-post down if that is possible. First, I am afraid those using Google may happen upon this and, without benefit of being routine readers of your blog, may mistake this for real events at the cemetery. (Scarier things have happened at other cemeteries, so it is not far-fetched to see this as possible and factual.) Secondly, we face (and are trying very hard to overcome) enough formidable challenges at the CRC without misconceptions like this floating around out there in web-world for eternity and adding to our pile of problems. Please give it a think and let me know; I can be reached via the CRC's email address (listed on our home page). Respectfully yours, John H.
ReplyDeleteThe Cortland Contrarian appreciates your concern, but our staff does not believe that readers will mistake the satire in this post. Your comment and this reply confirm the intended satire. Sorry, John, it's a dead issue.
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