The funeral home director at the center of the storm over what to do with Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body is one of those people you can’t help but admire.
Peter Stefan, the owner of Graham Putney & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, has become an international media sensation for just doing his job. The body of Tsarnaev, who died in a shootout with police in Watertown, was initially sent to a funeral home in North Attleborough, but then found its way to Stefan’s funeral home in Worcester.
While Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and others have turned the body away or tried to duck the controversy, Stefan has steered clear of politics and remained resolute that the body must be buried in accordance with the family’s wishes. As he told the Associated Press: “We take an oath to do this. Can I pick and choose? No. Can I separate the sins from the sinners? No. We are burying a dead body. That’s what we do.”
(Update: Worcester police confirmed this morning that Tsarnaev’s body has been buried. An unnamed funeral home official told the Globe the body was removed before midnight last night and entombed outside of Massachusetts.)
A profile in the Boston Globe today provides a glimpse of how Stefan is coping with the protests outside his funeral home and the endless media calls, but it doesn’t capture how Stefan has been bucking the establishment for years.
If someone dies poor and there’s no money for a burial, most funeral home directors run the other way. Stefan typically jumps into the breach, handling all the arrangements even if the state payment of $1,100 for indigent burials doesn’t cover all his costs. (The state payment, by the way, hasn’t been increased in almost 30 years.)
Stefan is also a refreshing voice of transparency in a business where high prices and secrecy are commonplace. Stefan lists many of his prices on his website, including $1,490 for a simple cremation. Other funeral homes release their pricing information only if someone calls or stops by the funeral home. Prices for simple cremations at many funeral homes are $5,000 and up.
“No one would buy a car from a dealership if they could get it down the street for $1,000 less, but in the funeral business people do it all the time,” Stefan told the Globe in 1995. “Nobody asks any questions. They all go where their Uncle Harry went.”
–BRUCE MOHL
MARATHON BOMBINGS
The US Department of Education says UMass Dartmouth cannot release the student education and financial records of accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev without his permission.
Federal investigators are taking another look at the six months Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent in Dagestan, Russia. Tsarnaev’s parents say he spent the trip reading and connecting with family, but according to the New York Times, investigators are looking into contacts with members of a fundamentalist mosque, and a “relative who is a prominent Islamist leader recently taken into custody by Russian authorities.”
BEACON HILL
The Public Health Council approves regulations for the sale of medical marijuana. Advocates on both sides of the issue are unhappy with the new regs.
The Herald speaks with a Dedham police officer who tipped off state welfare officials about benefits flowing to a drug dealer’s home; the officer says the state agency never called him back.
A Herald editorial calls for an overhaul of the state’s sex offender laws.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
The Bridgewater Town Council voted a six-month extension for volunteers to meet the new mandate for filing financial disclosure forms, which many say could discourage residents from serving on town boards and commissions.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn has added two amendments to a water projects bill that would expand the federal gun registry for weapons and ammunition owned by the government.
Gail Collins finds one person who is likely to be ecstatic over Mark Sanford’s political comeback: Anthony Weiner.
ELECTIONS
A WBUR poll by the MassINC Polling Group shows Democrat Ed Markey with a 6 point lead over Republican Gabriel Gomez in the race for US Senate, a margin that increases to 8 points when the poll includes those leaning toward one candidate. A new Suffolk University/7News poll gives Markey a much bigger 17 point lead.
The first television ad for Markey trumpets his telecommunications expertise. The Globe reports on the big haul in PAC money Markey has taken from the telecom industry.
Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez claimed a $281,000 tax deduction in 2005 for agreeing not to make changes to his palatial Cohasset home, an historic preservation tax write off that has been roundly criticized as an unwarranted perk for 1 percenters.
The Herald reports that candidates are courting Michael Kineavy, the muscle behind Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s political machine, although the paper doesn’t actually identify which suitors are in line for Kineavy’s services.
New Census data show that although black voter participation is climbing, voting rates for Hispanics and Asians continue to lag, even in key swing states like Colorado. November marked the first presidential election when a higher share of eligible black voters than white voters cast presidential ballots.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Cape Net, a regional broadband fiber optic network that will improve Internet service from the Cape Cod Canal to Provincetown, will go online in the coming weeks.
A New York Times editorial raps big banks for allegedly failing to adhere to the terms of a $26 billion foreclosure settlement, even as the big banks in question tell Washington lawmakers they’re over-regulated.
EDUCATION
A new study reports that colleges are increasingly trying to lure wealthy families with merit aid packages, outlays that come at the expense of underwriting costs for more needy students.
HEALTH CARE
The federal government has released a massive database that shines a light on health care costs, showing the wide discrepancy in costs between hospitals and billing for services that can be as much as 10 to 20 times what Medicare reimburses.
TRANSPORTATION
The Coast Guard has turned off the foghorn at the 132-year-old Borden Flats Lighthouse in Fall River because it was going off at irregular intervals. The Coast Guard is considering decommissioning the horn.
The state is holding a public hearing over the design of the new Fore River Bridge at the Quincy-Weymouth line, which has already had the foundation laid.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
State officials release a new master plan to reduce waste by 30 percent by 2020. The plan include no expansion of waste incineration, the Lynn Item reports.
The state’s environmental secretary says he’s “absolutely convinced” New Bedford will be the staging area for Cape Wind despite the wind farm’s developer looking at options in Rhode Island.
The state has fined two companies involved in building an industrial solar farm in Dartmouth for violating licensing requirements for electricians.
The Boston City Council approved a new ordinance requiring large commercial and residential property owners to report their annual energy and water use.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Federal prosecutors want to reinstate the death penalty for convicted triple-murderer Gary Sampson.
A Lawrence man is charged in the attempted blackmail of an unidentified Boston celebrity who was caught on video flirting with young women at a bar, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
