#8 - Brian Schaake and Christina Kalb A van belonging to the William C. Harris Funeral
Home was left unattended in St. Louis, Missouri, while its driver used a gas station restroom,
on the morning of February the 11th of 2021.
When the driver came back outside, he discovered that the van had been stolen, and promptly
contacted the authorities.
As was captured on the gas station’s surveillance cameras, a male suspect had entered the running
vehicle through the driver side door and then drove away from the scene after a female suspect
had climbed into the passenger seat.
The police’s initial attempts to locate the stolen vehicle proved unsuccessful.
However, the following morning, they received reports that the van had been spotted at a
Walmart in the city of Festus, roughly 50 miles from the scene of the theft.
The two suspects, identified as 38-year-old Brian Schaake and Christina Kalb, aged 31,
were taken into custody inside the Walmart.
The former was charged with one count of stealing a motor vehicle and held on a $40,000 bond,
while Kalb was charged with tampering with a motor vehicle before ultimately being granted
release.
The police detailed how there had been a deceased woman in the back of the funeral home van
at the time of its theft, but they ensured that her body had been successfully recovered
along with the vehicle itself.
#7 - The Minneapolis Post-Funeral Shooting On January the 22nd of 2022, roughly a hundred
people gathered for a luncheon in the community room of the Cora McCorvey Health and Wellness
Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, following a funeral ceremony.
At about 3:30 pm, a man reportedly entered the venue and began arguing with a woman who’d
been in attendance, although the relationship between the two wasn’t immediately made
public.
The shouting match grew increasingly more intense until the man allegedly took out a
handgun and opened fire, hitting two people in the process.
The victims, a male and female attendee, weren’t identified by police in the incident’s aftermath,
but it was reported that they were taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition.
The assailant fled the scene following the shooting and, as of the latest updates on
the case, investigators were still working towards identifying him.
#6 - The Funeral of Andrew Beazley
On January the 25th of 2022, Australian teenager Andrew Beazley died following a traffic accident
in which his motorcycle collided with a truck.
He’d been well-known within the Queensland biker community for regularly helping out
with charity rides.
On February the 4th, several bikers, some of whom were identified as members of the
Rebels motorcycle club, gathered to mourn Beazley’s tragic death at a funeral ceremony
in the town of Atherton.
Subsequent reports indicated that local police officers had been staking out the ceremony
and began targeting the mourners for various traffic offenses as they left the location
of the wake.
A total of 7 attendees were issued fines for wearing prohibited clothing associated with
outlawed motorcycle gangs, while others were cited for obstructing traffic and neglecting
to wear helmets.
Local state MP Shane Knuth called the police’s surveillance of Beazley’s funeral and their
subsequent intervention “disrespectful”.
However, a spokeswoman for Queensland Police claimed that they’d targeted the event “in
the interest of public safety”.
The night before the slew of biker citations, a member of the Rebels club was arrested and
charged with assault after allegedly striking another man in the head at an Atherton pub.
#5 - The Burial of Sadie Williams On August the 20th of 2021, the children of
the late Sadie Williams took part in a burial service for their mother after she’d passed
away from COVID complications, at the age of 87.
Salimah Lee, Ishmael Williams, and their nine other siblings reportedly pre-planned the
ceremony in order to ensure that their mother would be laid to rest within 72 hours of her
death, in accordance with Islamic burial rites.
Court documents detailed how Lee had begun to suspect that the body they were burying
wasn’t actually her mother’s.
She expressed her concerns to the operators of Slinger-Hasgill Funeral Home, in Amityville,
New York, who reportedly assured her that the body was, in fact, her mother’s, and
that it simply looked different due to the embalming process it had recently undergone.
The day after the ceremony, however, Slinger-Hasgill called Lee to inform her that she’d been
correct in her suspicions.
There had reportedly been a mix-up at the funeral home that resulted in the wrong woman’s
body being buried in the plot next to Sadie Williams’ late husband.
A second funeral, with the proper modifications, took place on September the 8th, but Lee and
her siblings reportedly filed a lawsuit against the funeral home in which they sought $33
million in compensatory damages and $55 million in punitive damages.
#4 - Nipsey Hussle’s Funeral Procession A 25-mile-long funeral procession for West
Coast rapper Nipsey Hussle was held on the streets of Los Angeles, California, on April
the 11th of 2019.
The ceremony took place roughly three weeks after the 33-year-old had been fatally shot
outside his Marathon Clothing store.
Thousands of people gathered to watch the procession.
It began at Staples Center, where a memorial service was held in the late rapper’s honor,
before making its way to the funeral home where his body would remain.
The massive gathering blocked the streets completely, at one point, as people congested,
seeking an opportunity to see the hearse that was carrying Nipsey Hussle’s casket.
LAPD officers were forced to reopen a path for the funeral procession, which subsequently
caused a stampede of fleeing onlookers that injured at least one woman.
At about 6:25 pm, three passengers in a gray Hyundai opened fire on procession-goers in
the Watts neighborhood of South Los Angeles.
Four people, three men and one woman, suffered critical gunshot wounds in the attack.
According to the Los Angeles County coroner's office, one of the victims, named as 55-year-old
Glenn Mitchell, ultimately passed away from the injuries he’d sustained in the shooting.
The suspects fled the scene in their vehicle, and the LAPD subsequently launched an investigation
into their identities and whereabouts. #3 - The Funeral of “Gypsy Joe”
Approximately 150 people gathered on the streets of Kettering, Northamptonshire, England, on
November the 9th of 2020, to mourn the passing of a man named Joe Rooney.
The ceremony was organized by 48-year-old Patrick James Rooney, whose late relative
was nicknamed “Gypsy Joe” by the Romani community in which he lived.
As was captured in photographs taken of the event, the mourners ignored the town’s social
distancing guidelines, and the funeral’s procession ultimately brought the town center
to a standstill.
Police officers equipped with riot gear were dispatched to the scene with orders to break
up the gathering, which had reportedly taken place just days after England had implemented
its second lockdown to combat the spread of COVID-19.
Rooney was subsequently charged with participating in a gathering of two or more people in a
public place.
The regulations set in place at the time stipulated that outdoor events must be restricted to
30 attendees, which Gypsy Joe’s memorial exceeded roughly fivefold.
The Crown Prosecution Service later announced that they’d decided to drop all charges
against Rooney during a hearing at Northampton Magistrates' Court, in April of 2021.
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#2 - Shevirio Kavirion Childs-Young In the winter of 2021, Minnesota teenager
Shevirio Kavirion Childs-Young was arrested following an altercation with Minneapolis
authorities that occurred during a traffic stop.
According to the resulting police report, Childs-Young had given the officers a fake
name and claimed to have forgotten his driver’s license.
His vehicle allegedly smelled strongly of marijuana and, upon searching it, law enforcement
found a loaded handgun that had been hidden underneath the passenger’s seat.
As one of the officers attempted to handcuff Childs-Young, the teen reportedly struck him
in the midsection before shouting at one of the other passengers to disarm the deputy.
The latter was able to call for emergency assistance, at which point Childs-Young was
pacified and arrested.
He was subsequently booked at the Hennepin County Jail on charges of illegal possession
of a firearm and assaulting a police officer.
Childs-Young later requested permission to attend the funeral ceremony of an unspecified
relative, on the morning of January the 3rd of 2022.
Judge Regina Chu ultimately agreed to grant the teen’s release on condition that he
report back to the county jail after a period of 3 hours.
Childs-Young never returned after the funeral, prompting Judge Chu to issue a warrant for
his arrest.
Following a month-long manhunt, the suspect was located at a strip mall in Brooklyn Center
and taken back into custody without further incident.
#1 - Blair Whitten On May the 1st of 2021, Colin MacDonald was
mourned by friends and loved ones during a funeral ceremony at Riverside Cemetery in
Fargo, North Dakota.
As the burial was in progress, an SUV operated by the deceased man’s ex-girlfriend, 28-year-old
Blair Whitten, began driving over grave sites and attempting to run people over, as was
detailed in a police report.
MacDonald’s father later told investigators that he’d confronted Whitten outside the
cemetery and requested that she leave, to which the woman responded by accelerating
in his direction, forcing him to leap out of the oncoming vehicle’s path.
Fargo police were called to the scene.
When the responding officers interviewed Whitten, she reportedly told them that she’d simply
come to attend the funeral.
The woman also claimed that she’d feared for her well-being after multiple people had
approached her car, prompting her to carefully drive away from the burial site.
Her version of events was thoroughly refuted by eyewitness testimony, however, and MacDonald’s
father alleged that Whitten had been driving at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour near
the area where the mourners were gathered.
Whitten was ultimately taken into police custody and charged with one misdemeanor count of
reckless endangerment.
She pleaded guilty to the charge, in September of 2021.
It was reported that, at the time, she had other open criminal cases involving allegations
that she’d spray-painted a statue at a Fargo church and threatened to burn down a couple’s
home.
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