Doctors and reporters convinced George Brown to exhume his three dead relatives so that they could inspect the bodies for undead qualities. Mary Eliza and Mary Olive had decomposed satisfactorily, but Mercy Brown had been dead for two months and showed no signs of decomposition. Never mind that she had died in winter and was being stored in an aboveground crypt (a.k.a. nature's freezer).

Through the years and across cultures, people speculate about the afterlife, struggle to make sense of death, and develop bizarre traditions