Man who bought grave above Marilyn Monroe's buried face down so he could be 'on top' of her for eternity
Even in death women can't escape the sort of things creepy dudes think are alright, as a man bought the grave above Marilyn Monroe so he'd be 'on top' of her forever.
The legendary movie star died in 1962 at the age of 36 from an overdose of barbiturates, and the obsession people had with her in life continued through to her death.
Monroe was laid to rest in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in a crypt that used to belong to her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio, but he had sold it in 1954 around the time he and the movie star were getting divorced to a man named Richard Poncher.
He died in 1986 at the age of 81, and according to his wife, Elsie, shortly before his death he instructed her to make sure his body was placed in the grave above Marilyn Monroe, and he insisted she bury him face down as well.
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Speaking to the Seattle Times, Poncher's widow explained: "He said, ‘If I croak, if you don’t put me upside down over Marilyn, I’ll haunt you the rest of my life."
At his funeral, she said she explained her late husband's last wish and saw them turn him over so his corpse could be lying on top of Marilyn's and facing down at her for eternity.
While Poncher hadn't known at the time he bought the crypt that Marilyn Monroe would be buried there, he did leave behind the very specific instructions for what to do with his body.
Poncher had actually bought two crypts from DiMaggio, and after 23 years of getting his burial wish to be on top of Monroe his wife had been planning to move him to the other one they'd owned.
NPR reports this wasn't to finally free Marilyn's remains from being imposed upon, but because she wanted to pay off the mortgage on her house and was going to auction off the spot above the movie star so some other guy could have it.
Bidding for the plot above Monroe started at $500,000 (£375,000) but the price climbed up to $4.6 million (£3.4 million) when a man from Japan won the auction.
It seemed as though Richard Poncher's time buried on top of Marilyn Monroe and facing down would come to an end, but the winning bid failed to produce the money, and the deal fell through.
So there Poncher remained in repose, looming over one of the most famous movie stars of all time, and indeed he still does as his body is still in the grave to this day.
There is someone else who did successfully pay money to have their remains interred next to Monroe, as Playboy founder Hugh Hefner bought the space next to her for $75,000 (£56,000) in 1992.
He died in 2017, so it was some time before he got to use the space, and he said: "I’m a believer in things symbolic.. Spending eternity next to Marilyn is too sweet to pass up."
For her part, Marilyn never got the chance to say whether she'd have wanted him to pay to be buried next to her...
Joe Harker