A bizarre end to a life

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I’ve just finished wading through Keith Richards’ autobiography. Richards is best known as an integral part of the Rolling Stones rock group. Over his extensive career, he associated with many musicians. One of these was Ingram Cecil Connor III (1946-1973), known professionally as Gram Parsons. Richards mentioned Gram Parsons many times. For some reason, I googled Gram Parsons and what a story I discovered. There is a long entry about him on Wikipedia but it is what happened after his death that is really bizarre. Parsons had expressed a wish for his body to be cremated at Joshua Tree and his ashes spread over Cap Rock, a prominent natural feature. However, his stepfather, Bob Parsons, organized a private ceremony back in New Orleans and neglected to invite any of his friends from the music industry. It is believed that Bob Parsons stood to inherit Gram's share of his grandfather's estate providing Gram was a resident of Louisiana, which explained his eagerness to have him buried there. Two of Gram’s friends, stole his coffined body and drove it to Joshua Tree. On reaching Cap Rock, they poured five gallons of gasoline into the open coffin and set it alight, creating an enormous fireball. To cut a long story short, the two friends eluded the police, leaving 35 pounds (16kgs) of Gram Parson’s charred remains in the desert. These were eventually buried in the Garden of Memories Cemetery in Metairie, Louisiana. I thought this was a very bizarre story. The photo is in the public domain.