Van Towed With Body Inside

Mar 14, 2010 | 0 comments

Did you see the news the other day about a New York City funeral home that had one of its mini-vans towed away for being illegally parked? A common enough occurrence, but there was a body inside!

Paul DeNigris came out of Redden’s Funeral Home on 14th Street in Brooklyn on Thursday to find the mini-van gone. The body inside was bound for a flight out of Newark Airport, but the identifying sign the funeral home used to avoid being towed had fallen down. The van’s dark tinted windows hid the white cardboard box that held the body.

DeNigris says he was “a wreck” after discovering the van missing Monday in Manhattan, according to the Daily News newspaper. He rushed to the tow pound, where he discreetly explained the circumstances and got the van back. He also got the body to the airport in time for a scheduled flight to Miami, where it is to be cremated.

He plans to fight the $115 parking ticket. WABC-TV did a story, as did a number of wire services.

My question is, why fly the body from New York to Miami for cremation? It’s much more cost-effective to cremate where the body is located, then transport the ashes elsewhere. Maybe there were multiple family members who wanted to view the body in Florida.

Either way, this body made history, and no one in that family will soon forget this funeral!

A Good Goodbye