Editor’s Note
Today’s newsletter features much exposition on disposition, a word that means, in deathcare parlance, ‘how do I get rid of a body?’
The topic feels fitting for the first GraveDigest of October, when this horror fiend is eyeballs deep in onscreen depictions of unseemly dispatchments.
Today’s stories are a touch more humane — but no less captivating in their treatment of two little-known ways some Americans are handling what remains when we die, and the people striving to bring those options to light.
We also have some exciting news on the warm body front: Jennifer Baik has joined the team as GraveSite’s managing editor! Jennifer’s background spans audience development, content and newsletter strategy, and editorial project management for organizations including National Geographic, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Here, she’ll be wrestling our editorial calendar and inbox into shape, assigning stories, and ensuring our contributors are much better supported. We’re thrilled!
Finally, we’re commemorating the first death anniversary of audience editor Charli K Elder’s dad on October 10. Her raw, unfiltered reflections, written three days after his passing, are here.
Thanks for being with us.
— Delaney + Team GraveSite
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Short Read · News
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World’s First Body Farm Triples Human-Remains Caseload
University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s famed center for studying how humans decompose will now work 90 cases per year in new 2,725-square-foot facility.
Kristine Gill
Remains recovered at an excavation site. Photo: Courtesy FBI archives
For decades, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Brandon Elkins of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) referred to the deceased only as “Baby Girl.” But thanks to advances in forensic genetic genealogy and free lab testing, his team identified the teen in 2022 as Tracy Sue Walker. …
Tracy Sue’s identification “was the impetus of the entire TBI unidentified human remains initiative,” Elkins told GraveSite of the program that has since identified 10 more deceased individuals. “She was the proof that this could work.”
Elkins worked on the case alongside forensic anthropologists at University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Forensic Anthropology Center (FAC), world-renowned for advancing knowledge on how human bodies decompose.
Today, as the science continues to improve, this center — at the heart of many of its breakthroughs — is growing.
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Long Read · Feature
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The Town That Burns Its Dead in the Open Air
Death in America is a $20B industry. In one Colorado county, it’s a volunteer with a long metal pole and a pile of wood.
Christabel Lobo
Crestone neighbors and community members gather at the funeral pyre. Photo: Courtesy David Wright via Crestone End of Life Project
Just after sunrise in a remote town in southern Colorado, a gong rings out across the high desert.
The shrouded body arrives first.
Pallbearers carry it on a stretcher of open pine slats toward the pyre. Today, a flute player follows behind. Other times, it’s a New Orleans–style trumpet player, or an a cappella women’s singing group, or simply recorded music from a phone.
The procession circles clockwise around the hearth before the body is laid on an iron grate, head facing east. Each person gathered is given a sprig of juniper — a fragrant, flammable symbol of remembrance to place on the shroud. Then, juniper boughs and cordwood go atop, layer by layer, until the body disappears completely beneath the pile.
Four family members step forward to light their torches from a clay pot of burning frankincense and juniper. They walk to the four openings of the pyre and lower their flames.
“GraveSite’s newsletter and events have been invaluable as I’m feeling overwhelmed by the presence of death and everything that accompanies it. [The team is] stepping into a significant gap in the media landscape to normalize conversation around death. We need them, friends.”
— Community convener Janna Carlson in her newsletter
GraveSightings · Death News from Elsewhere
When lethal injection isn’t lethal: Salon’s Austin Sarat on Christa Pike and bungled executions, AP’s Jeffrey Collins with more context, and Texas Observer’s Jeff Hood on the execution of Jamaal Howard — the country’s first following the failed attempt for Pike.
“He Murdered My Uncle...Then Wrote a Fake Memoir About It.” Jessica Lipsky on her winding quest for vindication.
Early depression treatment may be linked to lower cancer death risk, according to a massive new study. Psychotherapy was linked to a 27% lower risk of dying from cancer when started within a week of diagnosis.
“Say something:” Practical advice to better support your grieving loved ones.
Disenfranchised grief: “For older people, the loss of a long-term friend means we have lost a life witness.”
Spooky szn gems: “Primetime is Network for a new generation: unhinged, timely, and sometimes preachy,” says Dissent’s Annie Berke. Props to Black Christmas’s Jess, a final girl ahead of her time. Splatter that matters from Indonesian director Joko Anwar.
Gif by Cruisified on Giphy
Founder and Editor-in-Chief: Delaney Rebernik
Co-Founder and Executive Producer: Alexis Haut
Audience Editor: Charli K. Elder
Managing Editor: Jennifer Baik
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