Troy Schoeller
Should the state board that licenses embalmers have yanked the license of Massachusetts embalmer Troy Schoeller after he described his work in graphic and disgusting terms to a reporter?
Schoeller is suing, claiming that the discipline violates his First Amendment rights, and I would think that he has a strong case. That’s a constitutional law question, however. My question is: did Schoeller do anything so unethical that it would justify taking his profession away…by telling the Boston Phoenix writer how he works to restore traumatized corpses, how the bodies of fat people react to the embalming process , how revolting the fumes emanating from bodies can be, and, most memorable of all, how he reconstructed the smashed body of a baby “that looked like a bearskin rug,” saying…
“I had to rebuild it in nine hours. I used everything: duct tape, masking tape, tissue builder, wound filler. … I put, like, coat hangers and caulk in there and put him into a little baby outfit. … He looked awesome.”
The state Board of Registration of Funeral Directors and Embalmers found that Schoeller violated the code of conduct by talking about bodies in his care in an “unprofessional” manner. “Sensitivity, dignity, respect are at the very heart of this profession,” Assistant Attorney General Sookyoung Shin said.
It seems to me that the funeral profession has a little bit of self-esteem problem. I could easily look at Schoeller’s remarks as intended to help people appreciate what a difficult, and yes, traumatic job embalmers have. Is it unprofessional to describe the unpleasant aspects of a profession? Should a profession make it an ethical principle not to let the public know what a profession entails?
Perhaps it is the bearskin rug baby that sealed his fate, with the Board surmising that the child’s family might recognize their deceased infant in Schoeller’s gross description. It is a serious ethical breach for an embalmer to identify a person he worked on. That isn’t what Schoeller did, however.
Lisa Carlson, executive director of the Funeral Ethics Organization (yes, there really is such an organization) has weighed in, saying, “If he’s just generally talking about fat people that’s just poor taste. If he worked at my funeral home, I’d fire him for not having good judgment.”
I think she’s right. I’d fire him too, less for being unethical than for being reckless and representing his business in a bad light, true or not. Kicking him out of the profession for describing the less savory tasks he has to perform, however, is excessive. It may not be good for business, it may not be in good taste, it may be dumb. That’s not conduct that any profession should encourage, but kicking him out for telling ugly truths is unfair.
“Coat hangers?”
Ethics Alarms 
Coat hangers? Ha! Maybe that, ……wood putty and spachtel too? I find many occupations interesting to learn about the different dynamics. I remember touring a funeral home and embalming room at 12. I was intrigued by the process, but nearly passed out with the smell of embalming fluid. It was always interesting to hear about the stories before they routinely embalmed the bodies for reviewal. The stories I heard mostly were the ones where the individuals had encephalitis and their vitals seemed nonexistant, the doctors in turn would pronounce their patients deceased. Then the corpse somehow would sit up in the casket at the wake.
I was in a profession that people love to read and hear stories. However, it is unprofessional to go into much detail when it involves privacy issues. In this case, he was using an example but didn’t give minute details. In that profession I would think that you would use more diplomacy and tact since they work with the public and more often than not during sensitive matters.
Perhaps taxidermy with herbs and spices?
Joan Crawford: No… wire… hangers!
Sorry – couldn’t resist.
If this person worked for me and gave this interview I’d fire him. He clearly shows a lack of respect for the bodies he’s supposed to be caring for after death. But does he cross the line to the point where his license should have been yanked? Perhaps. If the family of the baby claims that so much information was given out about their particular child that it was clear that he was describing THEIR child. In that case, he might not have a legal leg to stand on, as the rules seem more clear on this point. Since most funeral homes are in neighborhoods and most funeral home directors are well-known in their neighborhoods, I’m guessing there are a lot of people who instantly knew who this embalmer was and who the baby he described was. I’m also guessing the parents didn’t know, until they read about it in the newspaper, that their precious child was stuffed with coat hangers before being buried. Not a pleasant lasting memory.
The question of whether this is a person who should be in the profession from a moral perspective and whether this is a person who should legally be allowed to continue in the profession thus becomes murky. I hate the thought that someone who would openly voice the opinions he did to a newspaper reporter would ever lay a finger on the body of someone I loved or cared for. So I wouldn’t lose any sleep if he lost his appeal. Dead babies and coat hangers, a body covered in tattoos – think he’s listening to Alice Cooper when he works?
Wow… An Alice Cooper dig at the end because he has tattoos? That’s horrendously pretentious and impolite. What if I tell you I know pharmacists with tattoos? Doctors? Lawyers? Some with full sleeves. Just because people have tattoos do not make them bad people as your last sentence suggested. Despicable.
Morticians are extremely talented individuals who will use anything to make a corpse presentable. He was clearly in the wrong for relaying facts in the manner he did. It displayed a lack of character. I am not quite sure how I’d like for this to turn out, but as it stands I think he was an idiot.
Just because we do not want to know how our deceased is treated does not make what he did completely wrong. The history of how we treated our dead is amazing and weird. Taboo from National Geographic actually rates America as the most taboo for how we treat our dead. We dress our dead so we can pretend they aren’t dead.
Actually, Joshua, the Alice Cooper comment at the end was meant to be tongue in cheek, not a dig. I bought the album “Billion Dollar Babies” when it first came out and knew it by heart. One of the songs on the album was “Dead Babies”. Another, “I Love the Dead”, was a satire on necrophilia. The tattoo remark (if you saw the full body shot of him with tats covering his chest as well as arms) was in reference to the entire album poking fun at people’s fears, perversions, horrors, etc. I was a Cooper fan back in the day. And though I don’t have any body art myself, I do have friends and family who do – doesn’t bother me a bit. Sorry if you didn’t get my reference and took offense. None was intended. Maybe you’re a bit younger than I am and weren’t around when the album first came out?
I also have a dear friend who is a hair stylist. He often goes to funeral parlors to dress the hair of long-time clients. It’s a parting gift, done with respect and love. I have to hope that most morticians are respectful of the bodies of the deceased and their families. That’s why this fool’s insensitivity bothered me so much.
I may have misconstrued your intent, and I am sorry for that. I can only say in my defense that the structure and tone seemed to convey something other than you intended.
I personally see morticians listening to something happy when they are embalming the dead. Maybe blue grass or Enya.
Dammit, Jack. I’m trying to figure out your Herve Villechaize Award poke. Google provides no incite. Ruddigore just has me laughing though.
How quickly they forget!
Herve 1) is, appropriate to the topic, dead, and 2) was also most famous for portraying the dwarf sidekick of “Mr. Roark” (Riccardo Montalban) on “Fantasy Island”—and the sidekick’s name was…”Tattoo”!
AND he IS on Google. There are at least 208,000 references to him.
Here’s a clip from Fantasy Island:
Joshua – Am I to assume that was an apology for your “That’s horrendously pretentious and impolite” statement? (A bit harsh – don’t you think?) Since you don’t get the Herve Villechaize Award reference, you are likely younger than Jack and me, but if you’re posting here you should still be/act mature enough to engage in political/social discourse without resorting to name-calling. (I try to. I err at times. But I try.)
Don’t be so quick to judge and label. If you’ve read many of my posts you might have garnered that I’ve been a bleeding heart liberal most of my life, am ardent gay-rights, women’s rights, disability rights, and have no respect for bigots and/or racists. I’ve been called many things, but pretentious and impolite are generally not words used to describe me. If you’d bothered to think about the Dead babies and Alice Cooper connection (or Google’d Alice Cooper before you decided to call me names), you might not have had egg on your face afterward.
And a note for future reference – when you want to apologize to someone, it’s not really a great idea to apologize in one sentence, then criticize that person’s “structure and tone” in the next. That makes it clear you’re not really apologizing, rather that you still think what you said was justified.
By the way – my fav pic of my dearest friend/greatest hero – my brother – is one that prominently displays his full arm tat.
Peace.
1. Bonus points for using posting about tattoos and taboos in the same post: The Herve Villechaize Award.
2. I am somewhat to blame for using that photo, though his abs impressed me more than his tattoos. I really wasn’t trying to suggest he was a weirdo—my son will probably get a tattoo soon—I saw the photo on a Boston site that celebrates “bodies”, the live kind, and it was too good to pass up.
I think listening to Alice Cooper while embalming is probably as good as any music. I’d probably opt for Ruddigore, but that’s me.
I noticed the obvious tatts and abs, but still, honestly, the only thing Schoeller’s photo caused me to think was “Nice bat.” I hate metallic bats, but acknowledge their practicalities versus wooden ones at the lower levels of play. I wish the NCAA nurtured a bat-forest to equip its players.
Schoeller is guilty of indiscretion, at least, to the level of a firing offense. But I agree that he did not say anything – make that, did not say _enough_, insofar as the totality of facts appear at this time – to justify having his license revoked. But he may have come painfully close to saying “enough,” in his comments about the dead baby; with today’s media, that flirts with a breach of privacy (if embalmers’ customers, among the living that is, are to be entitled to any privacy).
How did Herve (The Little Breather) Villechaize and Alice Cooper get into this? And who the hell is Ruddigore??
Oh NO! You clearly haven’t read the Terms and Concepts section, as I have referenced “The Ruddigore Fallacy” more than once. “Ruddigore” (or “Ruddygore”) is a cult Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, a parody of old melodrama that is easily one of the funniest, with a terrific score. (The song “It really Doesn’t Matter” that is stuck in the Broadway version of “The Pirates of Penzance” is from “Ruddigore.”) The story is all about curses, ghosts, partying dead people and necrophilia, hence my reference. You can hear my favorite song from the show here. (It’s an awful production—those costumes! That staging! Why are they performing on a chess board?—but the guy sings it well)
I got your Ruddigore reference – but I wouldn’t listen to that OR Alice Cooper while embalming if that were my profession. I really was being tongue-in-cheek with my remark. I think I’d opt for light, soothing, classical music. To each his/her own. Unless … it was someone I’d known. Then I’d probably be tempted to play music that reminded me of that person and times we spent together or music I knew he/she liked. I might even dance/sing along while I worked. And I think, if there is such a thing as a spirit hanging around after death, that the person would appreciate that.
Aha! And I was assuming it was a character from “Harry Potter”!
I guess we really DON’T want to know how our sausage is made.
Yecchh! Fat, farting corpses, dead babies, caulking and coat hangers—that would be some lousy-tasting sausage!
I decided YEARS ago that I wanted to be cremated rather than buried. And I can’t see myself changing my mind anytime soon. I’ve made my wishes known that I’d like to donate any/all usable organs/body parts for transplants to help others first – then have family and friends take a nice sail, toss my ashes, and have a great party with dancing and happy remembrances. No wake and observing the corpse for me! This doesn’t really sit well with some members of my Catholic family – but I left the church long ago and won’t be a hypocrite in death.
I’d go for sky buriel if it wouldn’t traumatize my family.
Not good. It attracts lots of vultures!
That’s the point. Buriel at sea (*hat tip*) or by deep woods works just as well. No reason to pump me full of chemicals and poisons and waste all my tasty flesh.
I tried to avoid the whole embalming process with no funeral and cremation but unless it has changed here in the last 15 years, you have to be embalmed funeral or no, cremation or not. Only way to avoid it here is to walk into the woods when you are ready to die and hope they don’t find you until there is nothing left to embalm. Years ago, I was traveling a lot and we hired a once a week cleaning lady. It lasted 3 weeks until I realized I don’t like strangers cleaning my house or most especially doing my laundry. To do that, they have to touch my things – my dirty things! I can’t even imagine how upset I would be at a stranger embalming my dead body. All I can say is, good thing I will be dead because that would drive me nuts!
His interview was tasteless and something I would not have watched but it seems to me they shouldn’t be so upset by revealed industry secrets, it is not magic. Maybe if people understand that coat hangers are being used to hold it together, they would decide it is better to let it go in pieces. I think the latter choice shows more respect for the dead. The coat hanger option is all about the living.
I don’t know what the statutes were 15 years ago, but it’s my understanding that unless you want to have a wake/viewing/funeral service with the body present, you can have a cremation without embalming in the US.
I was born in the US, but I live in Canada and have for most of my life so it might be rather rude of me to claim my birthright for cremation the way i want it…. and then ask my husband to drive my ashes back over the border to toss them into the Canadian wind. LOL! I would love to see the same guidelines here and they very likely could have changed, it has been awhile since I checked.
This is all a very good promotion for either cremation… or burial at sea! I think I’d rather that my mortal remains were fish food rather than let the Illustrated Man have his merry way with them.
Jack, I think that Schoeller received an unjust punishment from the Board that yanked his license. He’s not a good speaker but the article wasn’t written/edited well either.
What is more troubling is the reaction by the court of public opinion. Your photo, while factually accurate, appeared to prejudice many of your readers because the comments focused more on Schoeller’s appearance than the facts of the case.
It also seemed like many got hung up on the references to the use of coat hangers and the baby. I don’t believe it was objectively fair to refer to it as a “smashed body of a baby” because that implies that there was some horrific cause of death that was further desecrated by his actions. When in fact, the original article describes how the medical examiner removed all of the baby’s bones and its brain before Schoeller received it. He then had nine hours in which to prepare the body for a funeral.
He considers himself a reconstruction specialist. What that entails may not be something that most people care to know about. Or in other words–ignorance is bliss. But I think he is someone who cared about his craft and probably did exceptional work. It’s a shame that he doesn’t get more credit.
@Gregory: spot on. Fairness and insight. We need to remember this was an article… not written or edited by Troy and not necessarily his exact words or 100% written with his permission.
@everyone else: To speak to Lisa’s “I’d fire him” comment that you all love so much. That would be ILLEGAL (wrongful termination) since he broke no laws. So seemingly the actions that you all (and Lisa) feel were appropriate, were not. And the actions by the board to revoke his license and essentially ban him from the funeral industry, which you all deem extreme and unnecessary, are the reason this has been a 6 year legal struggle.
The question at hand is, if Troy broke no confidentiality laws in what he said (which he didn’t), why is he punished so harshly when trade journals and the experts on set for shows like 6 Feet Under are free to say whatever they want publicly with no reprimand? The MA law does not say that someone shouldn’t speak about a dead person they cared for in an unflattering/distasteful way, never mind the fact that those are OPINIONS and can’t be governed legally. The “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it” plea should NOT hold up in court. The state law simply states says the employee cannot speak about a dead person they cared for AT ALL. PERIOD. So why was Troy singled out and punished so extremely? That is why this case has gone to the MA supreme court — the state law needs to be updated and specified to be 1. constitutional and 2. in line with the other 49 states in the country.
Go Troy!
I don’t know where you got the idea that someone has to break the law to fire them, but you are 100%, dead wrong.
No, that is not what I was getting at, sorry, I see how that sentence reads that way. I just meant that there is such thing as WRONGFUL TERMINATION. That was exactly what happened and he WON the case. You can fire someone for whatever the hell you want, it doesn’t mean you are right.
The issue wasn’t about the termination of his employeement; it was about the pulling of his license.
I don’t see that he has anything close to a wrongful termination suit.
Right, you are echoing what I said, I was just referring to comments by Lisa Carlson in the article that were mentioned here about his termination being justified, but not the pulling of his license. It wasn’t, and that was proved legally 6 years ago as a separate case, which is neither here nor there at this point.
If he lost his license he was wrongfully terminated because he can no longer do his job. Reconstruction artists as they are called are amazing in what they can accomplish especially when people donate their long bones or have a major traumatic injury to their head. A lot more than hangers goes into reconstructing the body at death.
There are not many talented reconstructive artists out there. If he was good at what he did, then the industry lost a great asset! He also does a job that most people would not be able to handle. I say he learned his lesson, losing an income while this goes to the supreme court. If anything, fine him! And then make sure that his case is included in every mortuary law text for all future mortuary students to learn or included in the state or national boards.
Maybe the formaldehyde fumes clouded his judgement, but it is no reason to pull his license!
Wow, what a great discussion. Everybody has amazing opinions on this subject. I happen to be aquatinted with the individual who actually wrote this article, and let’s just say that she took liberties in sensationalizing the story, which is what writers do – especially for the Boston Phoenix (a publication well known for its transsexual escorts). I know she didn’t mean any harm to come to Troy, but it did secure her a job in NYC, writing for the village voice. If I’m correct, the article was supposed be about a local Boston clothing and music store, but somehow spun out of control at a bar one night. Unfortunately for Troy, he did not write the article, nor have a chance to review it before it was published. I know that it has caused him a lot of problems after it came out, and from what I hear – he is a good guy who loved his profession. Maybe he should have chosen his words better, and maybe the author should have toned down her artistic expression.
Truth all the way around, Bill!! It was a great article, but EXTREMELY unfortunate that it ended up causing Troy so much grief. Just goes to show how messed up the system is — hopefully the state supreme court sees it the same way and fixes the problem at its source and Troy can get some positive retribution!!
Unfortunate for all of the above commentators who don’t know what the hell Massachusetts law is about, there is no such thing as “wrongful termination” in MA. Everyone employed who is not part of a union or has a contract is an employee at will. That means, an employer does not have to have a reason for firing the employee, period.
As far as revoking their license, that is an ethics thing. There is a department that deals with that and exercised their right to do so.
I feel that based on Troy’s conduct, it was the proper thing to do
Aaaaaand…. HE WON. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/10/26/court-rules-for-embalmer-who-used-crude-terms/RbTd0Nwuax4UmOead0QG0H/story.html
to have his license taken away no, but i do think he could use another course of business ethics. its just some things you dont do. Fine him, or something, but there are standards that one holds and I wouldnt approach him and ask him to bury my loved one