After my death, I want to leave my body to my kids to use as a Halloween decoration, specifically a skeleton. A real skeleton is much more eco-friendly than those plastic ones.
So this raises several questions. First, are there any legal issues around this? Is it just a matter of putting it in my will? Would my kids need any documentation to prove they legally own the skeleton, and didn’t kill someone to get it?
Second, how would I accomplish this as a practical matter? Would a funeral home be able to take my body and hand back a skeleton? Are there good DIY processes for it?
Third, what do I (well, my kids) need to do to preserve the skeleton and maybe make it less appealing to dogs and scavengers? I’d hate to go to all this work only to end up as the neighborhood chew toy.
Comedian Del Close, who was a major influencer in improvisational comedy, particularly in Chicago, had specified in his will that, after his death, his skull would be donated to Chicago’s Goodman Theater, for use as a prop (Yorick’s skull) in productions of Hamlet. And, indeed, after his death, his longtime partner, Charna Halpern, presented the Goodman with a skull.
Alas, some years later, it came out that the skull wasn’t Close’s; Halpern had purchased it from a medical supply company.
But, for the OP: maybe you could find someone to do the same for your skull!
This reminds me of a case when an old man happened to collapse in his yard during the Halloween period. The mailman did not report the situation to the authorities although he saw the man’s dead body on or near the porch because he thought it was one of the decorations, not a real corpse. I think the old man’s daughter sued the postal service.
I know that, when a body is cremated, the flames don’t consume all of the bones, and the funeral home has to grind up the bigger bits of bone somehow. Maybe a local funeral home can just cremate you at a lower setting, burning off only the flesh but leaving the bone?
Mortuary science, and the legal ramifications thereof, are not my strong suit, so YMMV.
One of my goals is easy storage and being unappealing to scavengers. Anything that requires cold storage or leaves flesh or skin on the bones is probably out. Encasing me in resin would solve the scavenger problem, but I doubt my kids will have the attic space for a body that can’t be folded up, and it would be a pain to carry it around.
This is intriguing. I was expecting skeleton cleaning to be thousands of dollars, but their price list shows only $250-350 for a gorilla, the closest human comparison I could see.
Unfortunately, their policy states “human remains will only be accepted from bona-fide educational facilities,” so this would either require an under-the-table arrangement, or I’ll need to partner with a university somehow.
It looks like I can buy my own dermestid beetles for $250, but I’m doubtful my wife will put up with 4-6 months of my body stinking up the basement while I’m slowly consumed. Figuring out the right temperature fire seems easier.
I have two friends who each have a bona fide human skull. Both sit on the mantlepiece of the two respective houses. Both completely illegal, of course.
I’d absolutely donate my skull for a similar decoration, but unfortunately it is going to science, as I have a fairly rare brain disease, and I’d prefer that future neuroscience students to get it first.
I think most states have laws restricting the disposition of human remains. For example, it’s usually legal to keep cremated remains in your house, but it’s not legal to bury a dead body in your back yard. In California, at least, a body can be buried only in an “established cemetery”. A quick search seems to indicate that keeping a skeleton as private property would violate “abuse of a corpse” laws, which Google tells me exist in every state.
