Posted on 06/21/2013 7:33:40 AM PDT by JoeProBono
APPLE VALLEY Calif- Unable to pay for a funeral, an Apple Valley woman reportedly told sheriff's deputies she was forced to bury her husband in a shallow grave in the couple's backyard weeks after the man died, according to San Bernardino County Sheriff's officials. Investigators are trying to determine if the man died of natural causes.
The identity of the deceased man has not been released. The woman has also not been identified but neighbors and San Bernardino County property records show they are Thomas and Yvonne Winn.
"She's a really nice lady," said Colin Wilson who lives behind the Winns. "She would always wave to me every morning."
Apple Valley deputies were called out to a home in the 16000 block of Navajo Road around 1 p.m. Wednesday for a welfare check on a 63-year-old man, according to authorities.
At the home, deputies found the man's 59-year-old wife who told deputies her husband, who has not been identified, had died weeks earlier, according to sheriff's officials. Unable to pay for a funeral, she reportedly told officials she buried him in the backyard.
"I saw her kneel down near where the cops started digging and she just broke down," Wilson said. "She was obviously devastated."
The man's body was found in a shallow grave and his body did not appear to have any obvious signs of trauma, sheriff's officials said.
The woman was not arrested pending a cause of death ruling from the coroner, according to Cindy Bachman, spokeswoman for the sheriff's department.
Neighbors said the 63-year-old man had been ill for some time.
Touched by the woman's situation, Wilson and his sister, Emily Wilson, decided to set up an online fundraising account through Fundrazr.com where people can donate to help bury the woman's husband.
"I just feel terrible for her," he said. "I can't imagine what she went through."
In the first hour, the online fundraising effort had already raised $120.
Phyllis Jerscheid, owner of Jerschied's Men's Apparel in Victorville, said she would donate a suit to the Winns so he could be buried.
"This story just broke my heart,"Jerscheid said from her busy store on Hesperia Road. "I wanted to help in some small way."
The couple had recently purchased the home in November but moved in early this year, said Wilson, after some repairs had been made to the property.
"She was out there almost every day painting and fixing up that house all by herself," Wilson said. "She's a really strong lady."
A day after their neighborhood was overtaken by sheriff's investigators, news vans now lined Navajo Road.
"It's really weird to think that she was able to do this and no one saw anything," said Wilson as he stood in his back yard which faced the rear of the couple's home. "We all have chain link fences here and we can see right into each others back yards. I can't believe no one saw anything."
It's a violation of the state's health and safety code to bury a human body anywhere other than an approved and recognized cemetery.
To donate, visit, www.fundrazr.com and search Thomas Winn.
LOL. sounds like my mother-in-law. she was a hoot. tall, slender, could have been a model....but was a high school gym teacher for 30 years. we KNOW she is dead because she would have raised holy hell at what we had to pay for a coffin. my dear stepFIL drove what was left of her in a shoebox. my husband and his brother kept out a bit in a test tube...one for each family. Our girls (young at the time) took turns holding that testtube the whole 3-hr drive home. child #1 kept shaking it...swearing something chunky was in there. we said it was probably part of her gold tooth. child #2 kept yelling, “stop shaking grandma!”. she would have loved it. we were/are so tacky and classless. she was a recovering alcoholic the last 30 years of her life; naturally, we placed that testtube in the liquor cabinet and told her to have at it. :P
I think there is some confusion...you want to cremate your cats with you?
LOL! No, the cats are already dead and in their own little boxes...just gathering dust.
“LOL! No, the cats are already dead and in their own little boxes...just gathering dust.”
Now I’m confused...you have boxes of dead cat lying around?
Dead and cremated already. I just figure it’ll be easier for my kids to dump all the ashes at the same time.
Show me where Scripture permits cremation.
Whew!
“Show me where Scripture permits cremation.”
1 Samuel 31:12
(King James Version)
All the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Bethshan, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there.
Show me where Scripture prohibits cremation.
The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head and stripped off his armor, and they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among their people. “They put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths and fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.”
You forget this part? The philistines defiled Saul’s body.
Is that all you’ve got? The Jews burning the body of their king after he’d been defiled?
“show me where Scripture prohibits cremation.”
I’m sorry it doesn’t work that way. You have to show where scripture permits cremation.
It’s one thing to argue that a christian burial isn’t right, it’s quite another to get from there to saying, ‘cremation is a-ok’. No, no, it’s not.
In fact, if we look at your passage, cremation was intended to remove the defilement.
This is getting ridiculous.
It does work this way.
You’ve chosen not to accept what I say.
I’ve respected your belief, but do not agree with it.
Others here have also agreed the Bible permits creation.
Goodbye.
Cremation, not creation.
Dad's ashes are buried in a corner of mom's gravesite. I'm thinking maybe he should be moved to a liquor cabinet. <^..^>
The thing about that wild ride being brought up is it isn't always bad. There's a lot of chaos but a lot of freedom from caring what people think.
Tracing through paperwork, I suppose.
We had to have a beloved cat put down. After the *deed* was done, I told the vet That we brought a cardboard box with an old flannel shirt, the cat used to love to nap on.
At that moment, he told us about the law....and the *shock and awe* on our faces must have convinced him to say *Okay, okay...I’m going in my office to make a few phone calls; all anybody needs to know, is that I left the euthanized cat on the table ...left the room...and when I went back....the cat was gone. I’m sure the back door to the office was open.
We hugged him, and left with the cat. God bless that guy.
I don’t see where God specifies cremation isn’t allowed. If so there’s a whole lot of people who’ve been burned to death who would have no hope. Not to mention during war where large number of bodies dropped and they burned them for sanitary reasons.
There’s nothing there but a shell..the spirit is gone...the person isn’t here anymore.
I’d rather know a body is “dust”...than slowly rotting away with bugs and worms about in the ground.
We won’t be having the same bodies..not even close...Christ was dead 3 days ... “stinketh”.... you can be sure His was a “Glorified Body” resurrected...so too will ours.
....”cremation cannot prevent a sovereign God from calling forth the dead at the end of time”..
Billy Graham
My mom would have had a kissy fit too...she was cremated and had her urn picked out as well..and burial site...but my sister couldn’t stand the idea of no casket...so her urn was placed in a casket....but then you have to have a cement vault in our state for the casket...so that too was included....the expensive would have staggered my mom..not to mention her request was not honored.
‘’It would seem to me that in the churches I visited in the Soviet Union, and there are thousands of them, services are allowed to go on freely,’’
— Billy Graham
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