Just behind this wall is Richard Poncher's corpse, upside down, laying inches away from the body of Marilyn Monroe. Photo circa 1991, by Alan Light, used under a Creative Commons license.
Richard Poncher had one last request before he died. He wanted to be buried, face down, over Marilyn Monroe. And, believe it or not, his final wish was granted… but may not be as permanent as he’d hoped.
Poncher’s widow, Elsie, has decided that 23 years of resting in peace above Marilyn should be enough to satisfy her husband’s dying wish, and is offering the crypt where her he currently rests, right above Marilyn’s, to the highest bidder (on eBay, of course).
Poncher had purchased the crypt from Joe DiMaggio in 1954 during DiMaggio’s divorce from Monroe. Eight years later, Monroe died over an overdose and was interred at what is now called the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery. It would be another 24 years before Poncher would follow her to the grave. But before he went, he issued an ultimatum to his wife:
When he was dying, Elsie said, her husband approached her with a request. “He said, ‘If I croak, if you don’t put me upside down over Marilyn, I’ll haunt you the rest of my life.’ ” Right after the funeral, Elsie said, she told the funeral director of her husband’s wish. “I was standing right there, and he turned him over,” she said. (LA Times)
Whether or not Richard will return to haunt Elsie is only something those of us at CreepyLA can hope for, but he’ll only be moving to an adjacent crypt, into one reserved for Elsie, who has expressed her wishes to be cremated instead.
Until then, bidding for the crypt begins at $500,000, with a closing date of August 24th. Expensive, but in addition to Marilyn, other gorgeous neighbors include Donna Reed, Playboy model Dorothy Stratten, Natalie Wood, and most recently Farrah Fawcett (but even the dead will have competition – Dean Martin and Bob Crane are also interred at Westwood Village Memorial. And Hugh Hefner own the crypt next to Marilyn’s, for when the time comes.)
View CreepyLA’s Haunted Los Angeles in a larger map
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m a grim soul, but there are certain things that are simply crass and wrong, and Poncher’s sleazy dying request, the undertaker’s supposedly going along with it, and the widow’s trumpeting their little joke to the media as part of her sales campaign are a trifecta of reprehensibility. A human being’s resting place has been cheapened by these clowns. Poncher may or may not haunt his greedy bride, but if there is an afterlife, DiMaggio owes Poncher a spectral fist in the snoot.
oh, puh-lease KC; lighten up. one thing we all need to do is relax about the dying thing. the corpse is not resting. it is rotting.
quite the contrary re. “cheapening.” highest bid so far is $4.6 million.