Every Day is Halloween When You Bury Your Spouse in Your Front Yard
A judge in Alabama has ordered a 73-year-old man to remove the remains of his late wife from the front yard of the couple's home, where they have been for the past three years.
So we're clear: the remains are interred, under a headstone, presumably in a coffin, and he didn't kill her.
Jim Davis, who appears to be neither goth nor the creator of the popular comic strip Garfield, buried his wife, Patsy, in his yard one month after her death in April of 2009, nine days after city council denied his request to do so.
Her tombstone inscription reads "Grand Old Lady."
While his county's Health Department approved the establishment of a private cemetery on Davis' property from a sanitary standpoint, the city argues that the grave will lower property values in his neighborhood.
Davis counters that his neighbors' homes are "falling apart," their yards "littered with junk." How much of a difference could one or two little bitty corpses make?
Another point of contention: though Davis intends to be buried next to his wife (he's got his side of the headstone all filled in but for that last fateful date), the court found that he has failed to establish "perpetual care" for the site.
For his part, Davis argues that it's his right as an American to bury his wife on his property.
"This is my piece of the United States. I don't own [any] more of this world, just this. As long as I own this she's here."
Indeed, it would hardly be the first time a cemetery was established on a private U.S. residence.
Davis plans to appeal the court's decision, meaning the city might have to end up moving his wife's dead body over his dead body.
