Widow Drove Husband's Dead Body During Days-Long 'Rolling Wake,' Police Say

A widow in Alaska drove her dead husband's body on a days-long "rolling wake" along the state's southeastern coast, stopping from time to time at canneries to get ice to keep the corpse cold, authorities say.

Ketchikan Police Chief Alan Bengaard told the Ketchikan Daily News that the 78-year-old man recently died from natural causes on Prince of Wales Island, and his grieving wife took his body and just kept driving.

"For some reason she decided to not go directly to the mortuary and had been driving around with him for a couple days," Bengaard said.

"My understanding is kind of - leading up to the events of the last couple days - there's been a rolling wake or viewing," the police chief said. "It was pointed out to me that, evidently, she had stopped at a couple of the canneries and got ice and filled the bed of the truck with ice to keep the body chilled."

The woman has not been charged with a crime, though the police chief told the Ketchikan Daily News that he hopes she won't take her husband's body "back on the road again."

Early Wednesday morning, police received a call about the situation from someone near a popular dive bar in Ketchikan, and when officers arrived they found an aluminum transport casket, Bengaard told the Ketchikan Daily News. The man's body was inside of it.

The body was turned over to the mortuary until the family could make further arrangements, police said.

Bengaard could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday, but he told the Ketchikan Daily News, "You can't make this stuff up."

© 2016 The Washington Post

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