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Grave error: woman finds skull at mum's headstone
Published: 18 Jul 12 12:57 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120718-43833.html
A grieving woman who went to tend her mother’s grave in Cologne got the shock of her life when she found a skull, complete with a set of teeth, in the mud by the headstone.
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“He is no longer so good on his feet but wanted, as always, to visit mother at the cemetery once in the week,” she told the Express newspaper.
“But because of the rain he decided to stay at home.”
This was a stroke of luck in what was otherwise a horrifying day for Schmitt. “He could certainly not have taken the shock,” she said.
It was when she bent down to check the flowers and tidy up the grave, that she saw something she initially assumed was a coconut.
“There were also many worms and maggots. And then when I saw a jawbone complete with teeth, I flipped out. Of course one had the terrible feeling that one had found the remains of one’s own mother. “
Weeping with fear, she phoned her brother Harald who said, “I couldn’t understand what was going on. Claudi was beside herself. I just understood West Cemetery and went there straight away.”
When the siblings called the cemetery administrators, staff were terribly sorry.
“Things like this can happen, but we can only apologise. The remains will be buried tomorrow in a separate funeral,” said a spokesman.
Schmitt said visits to her mother’s grave would be even more difficult in the future.
“I light a candle for mother every day at her grave. I’m not sure whether I’ll have the courage to go tomorrow,” she said.
The Local/hc
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Your comments about this article:
Jeez, the wording throughout this entire article was strange to me...
When a grave is re-used after it's cycle (usually 25 years if not extended), it may happen that not everything is rotten. Normally it is, but sometimes...
So the excavator piles things up, the coffin is let down, then the stuff dug out is filled in again - and it that moment, something that used to be at least 5 ft under comes up to surface.
One reason is sometimes clay or other materials that seal off the coffin or part of it and thus stop the decomposing process.
But this is rare, normally.
But at all times, one or the other bone was found, normally they are put down below the floor of the next dug-out grave (so bystanders do not see).
In old times, bone-houses were used.
The Wonderer
I think I'd sue.