Woman charged after she holds 'STONE AGE' burial ceremony for dad whom she advised NOT to see docs when ill
POWYS, WALES: A woman propped her father’s dead body on his favorite chair next to a wood burner for several days before carrying out his last wish by giving him an illegal "Stone Age" burial, an inquest heard on Wednesday, October 5.
Eirys Brett, 32, and her partner Mark Watson, 47, carried out her father Donald’s last wish with a secret burial ceremony in 2019 but broke the law after failing to legally register his death. Donald, who was believed to be 78, made a last request to be buried in the woodlands near his farmhouse home in Aberedw, near Builth Wells, Powys, in a medieval non-Christian style.
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The couple, who carried out Donald's last wish in a "sense of love and loyalty," buried his body in a hessian cotton blanket with twine wrapped in a cross pattern in a non-Christian "medieval burial" pattern. The inquest heard that while Donald's body was on the chair, the couple, who live in St Harmon, Powys, were digging a 6ft long grave for him.
When investigators dug out Donald's body, they found him buried in a red and turquoise bobble hat, red t-shirt, and harlequin chef trousers, with paintbrushes, flowers and a poem left next to him. Investigating officer Detective Constable Alex Stuart said, "They had a ritual. He was not thrown in, he was strategically placed, it was a Stone or Bronze Age sort of burial, then they covered the hole."
The inquest heard that weeks before his death, Donald asked Brett for However, she and her partner advised him against seeing a doctor and told him to take alternative medicines. So he came to stay at their home in Powys but soon he got worse and died. A postmortem in May 2020 ruled his death cause as indeterminate but stated there could number of possibilities including natural and COPD.
"They started to dig around a 6ft burial site. It was not particularly wide. They dug it down over a number of days while Mr. Brett was in his house," Investigator DC Stuart said. Donald's landlord decided to alert authorities after he did not see the septuagenarian for weeks at his remote stone cottage. Authorities launched a probe during which they got Brett and Watson in a lay-by in the car they had used to transport his body.
The couple confessed as to what had transpired during the interrogation. Stuart said, "They both pinpointed pretty much the same place where he had been buried. It was a full and frank admission from the start. They both made full admissions that he was unlawfully buried." Brett, who followed her father’s footsteps and lived a "particularly alternative" lifestyle, told officials that she thought her father was suffering from prostate cancer and advised him to take holistic treatment.
Donald's ex-partner Alison Walker told investigators that he was "anti-establishment" and their daughter followed in his steps. Walker said she last saw Donald alive in June 2019, when he told her, "Aren't I lucky our daughter is looking after me." The inquest in Pontypridd, South Wales, heard he died later that month but his body was not discovered until two months later.
Brett and Watson were charged by police and later pleaded guilty to preventing a lawful and decent burial. They were handed four months suspended sentences at Merthyr Crown Court in July.