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Can you trust morticians ?
Life only guarantees a few things. Death is one of them. As civilized people we have built rituals and customs whereby we dispose of the remains of our dearly beloved in dignified ways. We trust the funeral director or mortician, sometimes at great expense to help us get through the process of death and dying.
The role of the funeral director, mortician, or undertaker, include embalming, cremation, or burial of the remains of those who pass on. The mortician is usually well trained in funeral rites which can be scripted in different arrangements as the religious or spiritual affiliation of the dead person or the family of such demands.
In days gone by many funerals were held in homes but with time the undertaker moved the funeral to specialized funeral homes. These are common in every city nowadays. These funeral homes are big business.
Funeral directors are professional business people.
Sometimes they are quacks.
In Mattawa, Ontario, Canada, one such professional who has been trusted with disposing of the remains of the dead was being investigated by law enforcement agencies. The funeral director in question was suspected of fraud and of embezzling the donation money offered on behalf of his clients.
The investigation started in 2007 and led to the arrest of Timmy Lynn Smith in late 2009.
The charges included
- forging coroner's signature
- failing to pass along donation money
- delaying cremations
- switching ashes and giving wrong ashes to the family of the deceased.
- more
Smith was found guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in jail with a two year probationary period to follow.
This keeps Smith out of the federal penintentiary system and away from the really bad boys of crime.
Can You Trust Morticians ?
Certainly Smith is the exception to the rule of undertaker ethics and professionalism. However Smith did receive the signature of someone who saw him fit to practice as a mortician. This is not an exceptional case of misdemeanor in that light. So often cases are brought before the courts where people who have managed to outwit those who assign licenses of practice that it becomes questionable how safe the schools who train professionals are.
The world is full of professional law makers and care givers who have outwitted the filters of the schools and authorities who are hired to train new recruits.
What does that mean to the safety of society ?
Are we ever really safe ?
Can you trust a mortician, a lawyer, a judge, your congress representative, a priest..............
Corruption seems to be the rule and not the exception nowadays.
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