Mortuaries

Seven families involved in a 1983 class-action lawsuit against a group of Orange County mortuaries recently filed seven federal racketeering lawsuits against the same mortuaries and the Neptune Society of Costa Mesa. The mortuaries listed as defendants include Harbor Lawn-Mount Olive Mortuary and Memorial Park in Costa Mesa, Westminster Memorial Mortuary and the Garden Grove Chapel, among others.

A South Los Angeles family who held a funeral for and buried the wrong woman after a mix-up by the mortuary plans to hold another ceremony this week. Evans Davidson, 74, told employees of Simpson Family Mortuary in Inglewood on March 1 that the woman in the casket did not look like his wife, but his concerns were dismissed and he was informed that "people's features will change at death," his attorney, Jeffrey E. Zinder, said Tuesday. Despite their hesitation, Davidson and his family continued with the open-casket viewing and funeral, to which they had invited 150 guests, the attorney said.

The growth of Pierce Bros. Mortuaries can be explained largely by the fact that just about once a month an independent, neighborhood funeral home in Southern California is given last rites. Mortuary mortality is on the rise, brought on by high overhead and a trend toward lower-cost services such as cremations. As a result, morticians or their heirs find it hard to resist cashing in the land they own.

Summoned to a couple's Woodland Hills condominium last spring, police officers heard a sad but familiar tale. The wife, an active 70-year-old, said she had come home from a tennis match to find her husband of five decades dead in his bed. He was 80, diabetic and suffered from high blood pressure, she told them. Officers consoled the woman and arranged for the body to be sent to a funeral home. But three days later, on the eve of his cremation, a perfunctory check at the mortuary triggered a series of stunning revelations: The man had been beaten to death, the murder weapon was a coffee cup from the kitchen, and the prime suspect was his widow.

David Chuang passes by the elegant brick building with the ivy-covered chapel at least once a day, and the mere thought of what it could contain makes him shudder with dread. "I'm in my 60s. I'm happy to be alive. I don't want to be reminded of death," said the Alhambra man while picketing recently in front of the property, which some nearby residents and business owners fear could turn into a mortuary.

John F. Llewellyn, 40, has been named president, general manager and chief executive of Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks and Mortuaries. He succeeds Frederick Llewellyn, who becomes chairman. Senior Vice President Clark Hilton succeeds John Llewellyn as executive vice president.

Pierce Bros., the Los Angeles area's largest chain of mortuaries, has tentatively agreed to be acquired by the biggest funeral-home operator in the nation, Service Corp. International (SCI). Terms were not disclosed pending a definitive merger pact between the companies. "We're in the business of buying funeral homes and cemeteries," and Pierce Bros. "fits precisely into our growth plans," SCI spokesman Bill Barrett said. Pierce Bros.

Two free taxi services and free coffee will be available to New Year's Eve revelers who celebrate with too much champagne tonight. To get a ride home from a bar or restaurant, call Taxitime, a service sponsored by beer distributors and two cab companies, Yellow Cab Co. of North Orange County and Orange Coast Yellow Cab at (714) 546-1311, or CareCab, sponsored by a Santa Ana health services firm, at (714) 972-3902.

Mercedes Adilia Rodriguez's wishes were precise and meaningful: Her casket would be closed during her funeral, and she refused to be buried in the chilly earth of a Southern California cemetery. Instead, following tradition, she would be interred above ground in her hometown in Nicaragua. But in the days after her death, family members say they were summoned to Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuaries in Whittier and told the funeral home had made a mistake. She had been confused with someone else.

A public viewing will be held Friday in Inglewood for R&B great Etta James, who died last week at the age of 73, a family representative said. The viewing will be from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Manchester Chapel at Inglewood Cemetery Mortuary , 3801 W. Manchester Blvd. The Rev. Al Sharpton will lead a private memorial service for the singer Saturday. —Phil Willon

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, stung by disclosures that the Pentagon's main mortuary had mishandled American war dead from Iraq and Afghanistan, ordered a review Thursday of why some cremated body parts were dumped in a landfill prior to 2008. At a Pentagon news conference, Panetta also said he had ordered Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley to assess the disciplining of three officials at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware who were in charge when partial remains from several deceased service members were apparently lost.

The Air Force said Tuesday that it had disciplined three top officials at the military's main mortuary in Delaware for "gross mismanagement" after finding that they twice lost track of body parts of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan, and cut off a deceased Marine's arm bone without his family's consent. An 18-month Air Force investigation said the three officials failed to take action "despite indications that procedures were inadequate" for tracking human remains at the Dover Air Force Base mortuary, which has handled most of the more than 6,000 U.S. service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade.

BOOKS Celebrate the spooky season with three chilling adaptations of classic horror literature presented at an actual cemetery with Wicked Lit. Walk the hallowed burial grounds as three scary stories unfold around you: Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Body Snatcher," M.R. James' "Casting the Runes," and Mark Twain's "A Ghost Story. " Mountain View Mortuary and Cemetery, 2400 N. Marengo Ave., Altadena. Thu.-Mon. 8 p.m. and Nov. 2-Nov. 6 at 8 p.m. $39-$60. (818) 242-7910. http://www.wickedlit.org.

The grandfather clock in the vestibule of the Douglass Family Mortuary in Lynwood is silent. The key misplaced, the mainspring unwound, its hands lie motionless at 6:38. Martha Castañeda has long stopped listening for it. In the company of the dead, she is happy to lose track of time just as she has this Saturday morning standing beside Juan Antonio Reyes Villatoro, who lies in the ivory crepe of his silver-finished casket. She studies his face, the pursed lips and the trimmed goatee.

Jesus Flores Vargas, a longtime Oxnard resident, has died following a brief illness. He was 42. Vargas, who died Saturday at St. John's Regional Medical Center, was an employee of Burns Security Co. During leisure hours, Vargas enjoyed dancing, soccer and boxing, according to family members. Vargas, who was born in Tlaquitenango, Morelos, Mexico, is survived by his wife, Socorro Valencia Vargas; daughter Jackie Vargas; mother Maria Elena Fusilier; a sister, Sandra L.

The state Supreme Court, restricting legal claims for emotional distress, refused Monday to allow friends and relatives of more than 16,000 dead people to sue for the intentional mishandling of the corpses by a group of Los Angeles crematories and mortuaries.

Steve Goldstein knows where all the famous bodies are buried. By day, he's a businessman who owns a payroll service. But in his off hours, he's one of Hollywood's best-known grave hunters. Author of "LA's Graveside Companion: Where the V.I.P.s R.I.P" and creator of the website http://www.beneathlosangeles.com , Goldstein knows all the stories behind the stars and their final resting places. So with Halloween approaching, what better way to spend All Hallows Eve than to visit the cemeteries to pay your respects to cinema's legends?

He mowed his yard, refilled his prescriptions and mopped his living room floor. Then the elderly man went into his bedroom in this placid Alabama town, sat on his bed and fired a bullet into his head. It fell to Benjamin Lichtenwalner, an expert in the aftermath of violent death, to erase all signs of suicide. Blood and tissue stained the floor, walls, ceiling and curtains. A round from a .44 Smith & Wesson had left a perfect hole in a ceiling fan blade.