Trespassed in a cemetery today

This evening, trying to distract myself from the ever-worsening feelings of gloom that have been clouding my thoughts for weeks now, I climbed over a cemetery fence after hours and had a walk. It’s a Catholic cemetery a few blocks from Michael’s apartment. It was still light out. I went around and looked at the graves. I like finding interesting names and imagining the people’s lives. I found a few items of interest: a German couple named Zylpha and Hildebert (feel sorry for both of them), and another stone where the birth year was listed as 1891 and the death year was blank. Apparently it’s been set up in advance for the oldest person in the world. Either that or they just forgot to carve in the death year, but I prefer the first possibility.

I was a habitué of the local cemetery as a child, from age eight or so up into my teens. This probably goes a long way towards explaining why the kids at school thought I was creepy and I had no friends. I cleaned the weeds off the neglected graves, set back into place the really old stones that had fallen over, etc. My fascination with cemeteries may go back to my brother’s death in a car accident when I was two and a half, 23 years ago last month. One of my earliest memories of visiting his grave shortly after his death — the overturned soil was still fresh — and Dad trying to explain to me what had happened to him. He was in a car accident and they kept him on life support for a few days, but he was killed more or less instantly. Word of advice: don’t try to explain the concept of brain death to a two-year-old. Even many adults don’t get it, never mind a toddler who isn’t quite sure even what regular death is.

I might have stayed at the cemetery a long time, but mosquitoes chased me out after 45 minutes or so. Then I went to McDonald’s and ordered a large meal. I couldn’t eat more than a few bites of it, so I took it home and gave it to some friend’s of Michael’s who were over. Thanks to my depression they got a hamburger, a cinnamon melt and fries.

Guilty plea in Mary Wilcox case

Jeanne Sevigny, the daughter of Mary Wilcox, has pleaded no contest to manslaughter in her mother’s death. She was sentenced to four to fifteen years in prison.

Mary was 78 when she disappeared in 2006 and she had Alzheimer’s Disease, and everyone thought she had just wandered away from home. No one was the wiser for years, until Jeanne’s son Gregory, who disposed of Mary’s body, told his girlfriend about it and she spilled the beans.

Jeanne claims what actually happened was that Mary tried to commit suicide and Jeanne accidentally shot her while they were wrestling over the gun. However, Gregory’s girlfriend said she doubted Mary was physically capable of the act, and the police and prosecutors believe Jeanne actually killed her mother to get rid of the burden of caring for her. So does the judge. As the prosecutor pointed out, “somebody does not go to these lengths [to cover it up] if someone died in a non criminal type of situation.”

But there isn’t enough evidence to prove murder — no body, no blood — so Jeanne took the manslaughter plea.

Articles:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WCAX
The Burlington Free Press

My ideal missing persons database

1. It would be current, accurate and regularly updated — daily would be great.

2. It would have several people working on it, but the writing style would be consistent throughout.

3. It would have all the vital statistics info the Charley Project has, plus stuff like the NCIC number and whether or not DNA and dental records are available.

4. It would have as many photographs as possible, preferably big ones of high quality, but whatever is available.

5. There would be easily visible contact information for the administrators.

6. It would contain all kinds of cases, including runaways and family abductions.

7. It would have an automated system you could sign up for to receive updates, including notices of new cases and resolved ones.

8. All the information should be available on one page, so the viewer doesn’t have to constantly move back and forth between pages to absorb everything.

9. It would be searchable not only by the MP’s name, physical description and place of disappearance, but also by keyword.

10. It would also be browsable, if a viewer isn’t looking for anything specific.

11. It would provide as many details about the disappearance as possible.