Posted on 03/03/2005 12:04:12 PM PST by ambrose
Woman testifies that mother's wrongful embalming haunts her
By Jon Burstein
Staff Writer
March 3, 2005
The daughter of a woman embalmed against her wishes testified Wednesday that she's haunted by the thought her mother's remains were used as a final exam by Lynn University funeral services students.
Sarah Anne Sanchez broke down as she described suffering from nightmares where her mother Madeline Post seems angry and confused. Despite a request by Post's husband that her remains be cremated in accordance with her religious beliefs, her body was embalmed at the Boca Raton mortuary school program before it was turned to ash.
"Until the day I die, I will remember what has been done to my mother's body," Sanchez testified in the civil case resulting from the handling of her mother's remains.
Sanchez and her stepfather, Jeffrey Post, are suing Professional Transport Systems Inc., the body-hauling business hired to transport the cancer victim's body, and company owner Joseph Damiano. Damiano had four decades' experience transporting, storing and cremating corpses in Florida.
The Post family alleges that Professional Transport Systems Inc. had been hired in November 2000 to drive Madeline Post's body six miles from a funeral home to a crematory, but instead held on to the body for 18 days, with a detour to the university. The university paid the transport company for use of the body, the family's attorneys argue.
Post's family reached confidential out-of-court settlements with Lynn University and Levitt-Weinstein Funeral Home before the case went before a Broward Circuit Court jury.
Damiano has denied knowing how Post's body ended up at the university, repeatedly saying in sworn statements that his company was "strictly a courier service."
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
Somebody call John Edwards...she needs a lawyer!
I'll bet a nice 6 figure settlement will make it all better....
and a voter registration form
Some people don't have enough to do with their lives, so they haunt the dead.
Perhaps, but I am on the side of the paintiffs in this case.
We have an ongoing investigation going on right now in Texas. A van was repossessed and picked up by a towing company, who took it to the bank. The bank then called the towing company back and told them to come back and get the van and get rid of the 3 bodies in it. It was repossessed from some company who moves bodies and the bodies were going for cremation. The kicker is, those people died like 5 years ago!
They are trying to figure out what the heck is going on and why those decomposed bodies are still joyriding around town.
No so bad that a little money won't fix it.
Oh, for the love of God. She's DEAD. She does not care what is done to her body. Why are her relatives freaking out?
Me too.
"Embalming means that [Madeline] will no longer be in heaven in God," Jeffrey Post said. "It is an absolute, absolute terrible thing. That means when I pass I can't spend eternity with her."
What religion teaches this?! I know in Judaism and Islam, as well as some Christian sects, people are buried asap after death but I have never heard anything like this.
I can't see how G-d would blame the dearly departed for her body being treated in a way outside her will by denying her access to heaven. I smell greed here.
That is just creepy. You gotta wonder who was driving that van around for all those years & why they didn't notice the small.
undisclosed settlement...."I'm feeling better already!"
Actually, Mom's very much alive and would likely kick the ass of anyone who tried any "funny stuff" with her.
Where do you think I get it from?
The bottom line is that it's not about necrophilia. It never was. It's about whether a body got embalmed or not, and unless it's a matter of religious belief, it's a stupid issue over which to have "nightmares."
I am of the opinion that once I'm gone, if someone else can benefit from something being done to or taken from my remains, make it so. It's not like I'm gonna use those corneas again.
They were in body bags, would that be enough to mask the smell?
Any way about it, it's a bizarre story.
You wrote this: "She does not care what is done to her body."
Of course, since your mother sells hot dogs....she may not care.
Would you care if people had sex with you after you died. Be careful how you answer....you know some on FR will take you up on that.
"Oh, for the love of God. She's DEAD. She does not care what is done to her body. Why are her relatives freaking out?"
So after you die, you wouldn't mind if the funeral home hired to bury you, sold your body to a dog food company, or to the local archery club for target practice instead? According to you, you are dead, why would you care?
"Oh, for the love of God. She's DEAD. She does not care what is done to her body. Why are her relatives freaking out?"
Could be a lot of reasons. Judaism forbids embalming as a desecration of the body. I guess I could understand how someone who was Jewish would have a pretty strong reaction to this.
Religious belief is a powerful force. People believe all sorts of things that might make no sense to someone not of their faith.
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