EMBALMED BODY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25301, 7 September 1945, Page 8

EMBALMED BODY

THREE YEARS IN SHED AWAITING A MAUSOLEUM The embalmed body of a woman who died from natural causes in May, 1942. has been kept in a sealed casket arid coffin in a shed at the back of a seaside cottage some distance from Auckland for over three years. According to the facte elicited as a result of a complaint by a woman to the police, the husband desired to build a mausoleum in a cemetery a.s a last resting place, but has been unable to secure the necessary materials. The police are satisfied there is nothing sinister in this unusual procedure, the woman's death having been duly recorded with the registrar of births, marriages and deaths in the ordinary way. The body was embalmed by a local firm of undertakers and contained in a sealed lead casket and an expensive double coffin. The husband then had the coffin taken to his seaside cottage where it has remained in a locked shed pending a final resting place being constructed. litis was the Jirst- case of its kind he had ever heard of in New Zealand, said the medical officer of health, l)r 'l. J. Hughes, yesterday. There was no law to compel relatives to dispose of the dead either by burial or cremation Under the Cemeteries Act, he continued, it was evidently taken for granted that a body would lie buried or cremated and his department had no power to deal with a case where a body was kept unless a nuisance was created. "My officers and the police have carefully investigated this case and have found everything in order," Dr Hughes added. "The husband of the dead •woman is a most reasonable man who •wants to do the right thing and is anxious to have his wife's body placed in a mausoleum, but is unable to proceed with the building of it.. It. is an impasse until these arrangements can be made The Health Department is now endeavouring to assist him in having the mausoleum built." ■