- How about letting the dead rest in peace, hm?
Visiting a deceased wife’s grave is usually a touching thing to do. But, of course, there’s an exception to every rule.
A New Jersey man was recently busted for visiting his ex-wife every morning. But instead of pining for a lost lover or bringing flowers, he did pretty much the exact opposite.
The guy came in daily to piss all over the grave.
His bizarre and malicious tradition was revealed when the late woman’s children discovered a bag of feces at the grave. Some sleuthing and secret early morning videography later, they had disturbing proof of the man’s morning routine.
The man has now been arrested, but it was far from a straightforward operation. It took a lot of perseverance from the woman’s children, but hopefully the serial desecration of their mother’s grave can now stop.
It Began With Poop
Linda Torello passed away from cancer in 2017, at the age of 66. Her son, Michael Andrew Murphy, and daughter buried her at the Tappan Reformed Church Cemetery in Tappan, New York.
In April 2022, the siblings discovered something at their mother’s grave that shouldn’t have been there. Someone had left a plastic bag full of poop at the gravesite.
Initially, they didn’t think too much of it. It was inappropriate, but maybe it was some dog walker’s honest mistake.
But then it happened again. At this point, the siblings began to think that maybe it was intentional.
“We contacted the police. They came and took a report and they said, ‘If you find another one, let us know.’ So, we found another one a couple of weeks later,” Murphy told News12.
Murphy and his sisters approached the cemetery to get permission to set a trap in an effort to catch the culprit. The cemetery agreed and the siblings set up cameras at the grave.
‘A Bad Breakup’
The cameras soon caught the perpetrator in the act. And to their shock, they recognized him.
The footage showed a man approaching Torello’s grave at around 6:15 a.m. According to Murphy, it was Dean Eichler, 68, who had been briefly married to Torello before their divorce in 1974.
“There’s been no contact since ’76. I know they were married for a year. They had a bad breakup,” Murphy said.
Eichler reportedly left Torello after she became pregnant. From that union was born Renee Barragan, Murphy’s sister.
But back to the grave. The video the siblings captured showed Eichler urinating on Torello’s grave before walking back to his car — where his wife was waiting.
“I can’t get my wife to go out to dinner but this guy gets his wife to go along with him to desecrate my mom’s remains every morning!” Murphy exclaimed in an interview.
It wasn’t an isolated incident, either. For four days in a row, Eichler showed up at the same time to relive himself all over Torello’s grave.
Unfortunately, the video footage wasn’t clear enough for the police to do anything with it. So, the siblings decided to go catch the guy in person.
‘I Was Shaking, My Sister Was Crying’
On September 18, Murphy and his sister arrived at the cemetery around 5 a.m. and set a hidden cellphone camera on a nearby gravestone and the two hid behind a shed.
And sure enough, at 6:15 a.m., Eichler repeated his routine.
“I could see him up there like this and I could hear the urine hitting the ground … I was shaking while I was hiding. My sister was crying,” Murphy recounted.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience for them to watch Eichler desecrate their mother’s grave. But the siblings did it because they felt they had to — although Murphy admitted he had to restrain himself.
“I promised my wife and kids the day before, I promised my sisters, because I was fuming, I would not hurt the man. But we wanted to do it the right way, we thought we’d get justice this way,” he said.
How Long Has It Been Going On?
And justice finally came. According to media reports, Eichler, who lives in Bergenfield, New Jersey, has now been arrested.
It’s unclear yet whether there’ll be charges pressed against him. According to New York law, cemetery desecration can be prosecuted if the damages exceed $250.
Murphy said he’s spent more than that to have hazmat teams clean his mother’s gravestone. But what eats at him the most is that he has no idea how long the vandalism has been going on.
“He could have been peeing out there for five years and we wouldn’t have known it. We only found out because of the feces,” he said.
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