Rotting foot horrifies family at burial for family patriarch

Associated Press

BUTLER, N.J. — Mourners at a New Jersey cemetery received a horrific shock when a corpse’s rotting foot from an adjoining grave was uncovered during a New York City man’s burial.

After Cleveland Butler died following a stroke at a Brooklyn nursing home, the 85-year-old man’s family gathered for his funeral last week at Mount Holiness Memorial Park in Butler. The Daily News of New York reports the burial uncovered a moldering foot of a neighboring corpse that fell on top of Butler’s coffin during the eulogy.

Workers then quickly filled in the grave. Daughter Sandra Butler called the incident traumatizing.

“It was too much and no one said anything to us … They just dumped the dirt in the plot like it was normal, like it’s nothing to them,” she said.

Caretaker Bill Plog said he is surprised this hasn’t happened more often, given that wood caskets deteriorate over time. He said the grave plot next to Butler’s is from 1969.

Plog said it’s unfortunate that it happened, “but this is a graveyard.”

Plog said that the decision to quickly fill up the grave was common sense and that he didn’t want to incite an argument with grieving family and friends.