Tourists are mirrored in a shop window as they sit in a cafe in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Thursday, April 1, 2010. Anke Janusic, 41, and Gitta Jarant, 66, were trying to fly to Berlin with Curt Jarant, 91, when they were arrested by police after it was dicovered Mr. Jarant was dead. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
English police have arrested two women for trying to board a flight from Liverpool to Berlin with an already-dead relative.
According to police reports, the women, aged 41 and 66, were taken into custody Saturday after they attempted to purchase a ticket for the dead man, 91, by placing him in a wheelchair and concealing his eyes behind sunglasses. They told staff at the easyJet check-in counter that the man was asleep.
Airline staff quickly became suspicious and attempted to talk to the man in the wheelchair, identified as Curt Jarant, a German citizen.
“They were just concerned for the man,” a police source told The Times of London. “They went to speak to him and realized something was wrong.”
“Staff were immediately concerned about his health and the first aid team were called,” a spokeswoman for easyJet said. “It was then discovered the passenger was, in fact, deceased and the police were called. The two female passengers were subsequently arrested and this is now subject to a police investigation.”
Police arrested the women, Jarant’s widow and stepdaughter, on suspicion of failing to give notification of death.
The women are German citizens who live near Manchester. Police suspect they were trying to evade the costly process of repatriating a body by air. According to The Times, bodies must be placed in hermetically-sealed, zinc-lined coffins and kept in the cargo hold.
“I have not heard of anything like this before,” said a spokeswoman for Rowland Brothers, a funeral company which specializes in the procedure. “It is most bizarre. I am outraged that they would think they could get away with it.”
In an interview with the BBC, however, the women, who were released on bail until June 1, insisted that they thought Jarant was asleep.
“This is ridiculous,” his stepdaughter, Anke Anusic said. “He was moving. He was breathing. Eight people saw him.”
Anusic said Jarant was recently hospitalized for pneumonia but had been given a clean bill of health when the hospital released him.
His widow, Gitta Jarant, said he was “the best man of the world.”
Comments
They must have seen the movie Weekend at Bernie's
'bodies must be placed in hermetically-sealed, zinc-lined coffins'
- well, that's the problem; they should have used a hermetically-sealed mayonnaise jar and left him on Funk and Wagnalls front porch... ah, where is Johnny Carson when we need him?
I didn't know whether to laugh or take this seriously! Oh those Liverpudlians (my husband is from there). Oh well, you gotta laugh.
They could have shoved him on top of the car roof and brought him to Wally World...
It's a good thing they weren't on spirit. It would cost them an extra $45 to stuff him in the overhead bin.
I love it!
I love the fact that they put sunglasses on to conceal and then they deny that he was dead.
...cue Monty Python Parrot skit.....
This is a fascinating story. Am I the only one who actually wonders if the ladies started out with a live guy?
Amazing! Also LOL at everyone's comments.
Just when you thought air travel couldn't get any crazier.
Someone's going to make a movie out of this one- oops, they already did.
Meanwhile, excuse me for being a little gross, but didn't the body smell bad? And wouldn't it have been cold and stiff? How were they going to get him into the plane seat? This is too much!!
It is possible that he breathed his last breath while being wheeled through the airport...surely the ladies wouldn't have been crazy enough to purposely pull a stunt like that!
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