Grim eater takes cake at funerals

Photo / Babiche Martens

A funeral home has stepped in to stop a fake mourner who was gatecrashing funerals, eating the food on offer, and even taking home leftovers.

The mystery man attended up to four Wellington funerals a week during March and April before the Harbour City Funeral Home decided he had gone too far, and stopped him.

Director Danny Langstraat said the company eventually grew concerned enough to take a photograph of the man and distribute it to its branches.

"He was showing up to funeral after funeral, and without a doubt he didn't know the deceased."

It was not unusual for people to occasionally turn up to funerals without knowing the deceased, Mr Langstraat said. "But this guy was certainly quite brazen and prolific in a short space of time."

The man, thought to be aged in his 40s, went to different churches and venues around Wellington's eastern suburbs.

He enjoyed the food laid on and even loaded up a container to take home.

"We saw him three or four times in a week. And certainly he had a backpack with some tupperware containers so when people weren't looking, he was stocking up."

Mr Langstraat said suspicions were confirmed when one family discovered the interloper and asked him to leave "which he did reluctantly".

The man was "always very quiet and polite, and did as the rest of the mourners did in paying his respects".

Mr Langstraat said he was respectably dressed and did not look like someone who lived on the streets.

But he did suggest the man could have had mental health issues, as he was not discreet about taking the food.

He stopped coming after a staff member took the man aside, telling him he could still come to funerals but could not take food home with him.

- Additional reporting by NZPA