Free Republic

It doesn’t matter who is buried, digging up the dead body of anyone laid to rest (besides forensic investigators cracking a cold case) is extremely disrespectful. Richmond, Virginia Democrat Mayor LeVar Stoney ordered a grounds crew to dig up the decomposed body of Confederate General AP Hill. The move by Stoney comes a day after General AP Hill’s statue was taken down and due to his statue being used as a tombstone, his body was removed the very next day.

A CRACK team of scuba-diving sleuths has solved a staggering seven cold cases in just two months, bringing much-needed closure to heartbroken families who had been left without answers for years. The group, known as Chaos Divers, operates out of Southern Illinois and is comprised of divers Jacob Grubbs and Eric Bussick, and head of logistics Lindsey Bussick. The group users sonar technology to help solve cold cases that in some instances have been open for decades. Between October and December of last year, the trio managed to solve seven missing persons cases in a number of different states, including...

An election watchdog has found 21,000 dead individuals still on Pennsylvania voter rolls in the final weeks of the 2020 election. The Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group, says 92 percent of the registrants died more than a year ago. The group also says there is evidence of voting activity after death. The findings were mentioned in an amended lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of State over its failure to maintain accurate voter rolls. The PILF says that as of October 7, 9,212 registrants have been dead for five years, 1,990 registrants for 10 years, and 197 registrants...

WASHINGTON — The US Veterans Administration will not replace three tombstones of soldiers who fought for Nazi Germany inscribed with swastikas in its military cemeteries, calling them “historic resources.” A group that advocates for religious freedom in the military on Monday called on the VA to replace two World War II-era POW headstones in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas, inscribed with swastikas inside a German cross, and the phrase, “He died far from his home for the Führer, people, and fatherland.”

Ptahmes was Mayor of Memphis and high-ranking official under the Pharaohs Sethi I and Ramses II (1290-1213 BC) of the XIX dynasty. His tomb is located in the south of the Causeway of the Pharaoh Unas which yields a number of tombs dated to the New Kingdom. It was rediscovered in 2010 after a part of it was revealed in 1885 and lost under the sands at the end of the 19th century. During the 2013/2014 excavation season, Cairo University archeologists found broken jars at the site. One jar contained a solidified whitish mass, as well as canvas fabric that...

Last month, archaeologists cracked open a tomb excavated in Alexandria, Egypt, revealing three skeletons bathing in an crimson pool of sludgy sewage. In response, tens of thousands around the world immediately petitioned for the right to sip from the freshly uncorked casket of amontillado. (Spoiler: It hasn't worked out.) But fear not, coffin connoisseurs: There's a new artisanal artifact in town -- the world's oldest solid cheese, over 3,000 years in the making. The tomb of Ptahmes, mayor of Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt during the 13th century BC, contains quite the trove of treasures. First uncovered in 1885,...

Disgraced Planned Parenthood official Deborah Nucatola’s shocking personal work history is coming to light. Records reveal that Nucatola was employed by a former White House staffer at the time that she was selling aborted baby fetus parts. A staunch political advocate, Nucatola railed against the “right-wing” Bush administration. What’s more, she so enjoyed her work in the abortion industry that she touted a T-shirt celebrating a drug used in the practice. Let’s break it down: Works for a White House staffer Nucatola is currently employed at Sexual Health Innovations, founded by former Obama White House staffer Jessica Ladd. Senior Obama...

The Memphis City Council began the process Tuesday that could result in the removal of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s statue and body from a public park. The City Council unanimously approved a resolution calling for the removal of the graves of Forrest and his wife from Health Sciences Park at Union and Manassas, and an ordinance to remove a statue of Forrest from the park received the first of three readings. The resolution about the graves still has to receive approval from Chancery Court and Forrest’s descendants, while the ordinance about the statue also requires approval from the Tennessee...

“Potentially unethical.” That’s how one expert described an Italian scientist’s plan to perform a “head transplant” by severing two heads at the same time, then cooling and flushing out the ‘recipient’ head before attaching it to its new body with polymer glue.That is “POTENTIALLY unethical?” Making one person out of two, and throwing away the unused halves, is only “potentially” unethical?Shock and awe.* * * * *Neuroscientist Sergio Canavero is undeterred by criticism, however. Canavero now reports that it’s possible to merge bone marrow, surgically cut with an ultra-sharp knife, when fusing one person’s head onto another person’s spine. The...

A grave-robber has been jailed after a grieving mum placed a tracking device inside a teddy bear at her murdered son’s resting place. Andrew Balshaw was locked up for 12 months after he admitted stealing from 16-year-old Andrew Holland’s grave. Joan Holland was so devastated by losing her son, who was stabbed to death outside a takeaway in 2007, that she has visited his grave every Sunday to place items on it she thought he would like. But Mrs Holland and her family became frustrated and angry that the gifts kept going missing. After they found the grave completely stripped...

At least one in five patients declared brain dead and approved as organ donors by one organ donation organization, are in fact still alive and are being killed by the removal of vital organs, a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan alleges. The suit outlines the ghoulish worst-case scenario, one that was widely dismissed as scaremongering in the early days of the development of organ transplant technology, but which is getting a second hearing amidst growing concerns that coercion and abuse are becoming increasingly common in the highly lucrative transplant business. Patrick McMahon, a nurse practitioner and Air Force combat...

The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory have identified the remains of an airman who went missing during the Vietnam War. Air Force Col. Francis McGouldrick Jr., of New Haven, Conn., is to be buried Friday with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on the 45th anniversary of his loss, according to a Pentagon statement Monday.

A relic hunter dubbed 'Indiana Bones' has lifted the lid on a macabre collection of 400-year-old jewel-encrusted skeletons unearthed in churches across Europe. Art historian Paul Koudounaris hunted down and photographed dozens of gruesome skeletons in some of the world's most secretive religious establishments. Incredibly, some of the skeletons, said to be the remains of early Christian martyrs, were even found hidden away in lock-ups and containers. They are now the subject of a new book, which sheds light on the forgotten ornamented relics for the first time. Thousands of skeletons were dug up from Roman catacombs in the 16th...

The parents of a western New York man killed in a car crash are suing county officials after the coroner there took a piece of their son's body for use in a dog-training exercise. Roger Dunn, 32, died April 13, 2012, in an auto wreck in Cambria. After his death, Niagara County Coroner Russell Jackman gave some tissue from the crash scene to a volunteer fire chief who was training a dog to sniff out human remains. Both men later resigned and pleaded guilty to misdemeanors over their conduct. They also apologized.

Coffin Exhumed Monday After Investigators Link Body To Connecticut Family; 2-Year-Old Found In Plastic Bag Cops: Dumping May Be Part Of Some Bizarre Grave-Digging Ritual STAMFORD, Conn. (CBS) ― Police believe the body of the 2-year-old child discovered in the Passaic River on Sunday may have been removed from a grave at a Connecticut cemetery. The body was discovered by a fisherman on the river's bank and was wrapped in a plastic bag. Officer Richard Conklin said a coffin at Stamford Cemetery was exhumed after New Jersey medical examiners linked the body to a Connecticut family. "On Monday, July 6,...

The heirs of an Apache chieftain whose remains are rumored to be held inside Yale's oldest secret society filed a lawsuit today demanding the return of their ancestor's skull. Twenty descendants of the legendary Apache chieftain Geronimo are suing the federal government, the University and the society Skull & Bones in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to seek the return of his remains as well as punitive damages. One hundred years ago today, Geronimo died of pneumonia at Fort Sill, Okla., but the suit alleges members of the society exhumed his remains in 1918 or 1919 and...

From the analysis of the intestinal contents of the 5,200-year-old Iceman from the Eastern Alps, Professor James Dickson from the University of Glasgow in the UK and his team have shed some light on the mummy's lifestyle and some of the events leading up to his death. By identifying six different mosses in his alimentary tract, they suggest that the Iceman may have travelled, injured himself and dressed his wounds. The Iceman is the first glacier mummy to have fragments of mosses in his intestine. This is surprising as mosses are neither palatable nor nutritious and there are few reports...

HOUSTON -- Police have charged three suspects accused of using the skull of a corpse buried in a Kingwood cemetery to make a bong. Kevin Wade Jones, 17, Matthew Richard Gonzalez, 17, and a 16-year-old boy were all charged with one count of desecrating a corpse. The suspects are accused of digging up the skull of an 11-year-old boy buried in a cemetery for African American war veterans and using it to smoke marijuana.

Doors will soon open to reveal one of the mysteries of the Great Pyramid in Giza, Dr. Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Discovery News in an exclusive interview... "Finally, people all over the world will know what is behind the second door in the southern shaft and the third door in the northern shaft," Hawass said... [T]hese 8-inch square shafts remained unexplored until 1993, when German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink sent a robot through the southern shaft. Nine years later, Hawass performed an investigation of the southern shaft on live television. As the world held its...

Three animal rights extremists involved in the theft of the body of an elderly woman from her grave were yesterday jailed for 12 years each in what is seen by police and prosecutors as a groundbreaking case.The militants, including a vicar's son and a psychiatric nurse, led what they called a "holocaust" against a farm which bred guinea pigs for medical research. Jon Ablewhite, John Smith and Kerry Whitburn pursued a six-year hate campaign against Darley Oaks farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire. Whitburn's girlfriend, Josephine Mayo, was sentenced to four years for a lesser part in the campaign. Almost 100 people...