AN AMAZING FRAUD

Southland Times, Issue 20496, 26 May 1928, Page 7

AN AMAZING FRAUD

TWO BODIES IN ONE COFFIN. GERMAN UNDERTAKERS TRICK. An undertaker at Essen, Germany, who was entrusted with the burial of a miner's child, has been sentenced to four months' imprisonment for an amazing deception. The parents, who were unable to attend the funeral, left the details to the undertaker, who later received his money, and gave them a ticket bearing a number which, he said, was that of the grave in a distant cemetery. Some months later they were in the vicinity of the cemetery, and the mother wished to see where child was buried. After an unsuccessful search, the cemetery keeper assured them that there was no grave bearing that number, and no child of their name had been interred. The parents also ascertained that at no other local burial ground was there any record of the burial. The police then took up the matter, and ultimately the undertaker admitted that he had kept the corpse of the infant in his coffin warehouse for four months awaiting an opportunity to slip it into the coffin of an adult and so avoid burial expenses. Ultimately he placed the corpse of the child in a coffin, but he could not remember in whose. It is doubtful if the authorities will consent to a wholesale exhumation, which the parents have demanded,