Father Rupert McHardy, a London-based priest, was ready to proceed to a funeral at the London Oratory Roman Catholic church in South Kensington when he got the biggest surprise of his life. The funeral was scheduled for 11 am on Monday. According to Daily Mail Online, the funeral was very lavishly prepared, there “was a horse-drawn hearse, two luxury vintage cars, men in top hats, a full choir” and “even a director filming the tragic day.” McHardy was about to start the service when the Church’s choirmaster pulled him aside and told him that the whole thing appeared fake.
Upon a little investigation, McHardy realised that the mourners were paid actors and there was no body in the coffin. The fake funeral was reportedly held for a 23-year-old Latvian man named Lauris Zaube who went missing from a New Year party.
The funeral organiser was a man named Clyde Zaube who said that Lauris was his brother. The funeral party claimed that Lauris was found frozen to death in ice. The funeral directors, T Cribb and Sons, were shown a death certificate, although it was allegedly from Russia. Later, it was revealed that while Lauris Zaube did go missing near an iced-over dam in Latvia on New Year’s day, his body has not been recovered so far. It is unclear why his funeral was being organised.
Fr Rupert recalled the whole saga to the news portal and said that the funeral request came three to four weeks ago. When he asked them if they had a ‘connection to the church’, the people who made the funeral request said yes. He added, “On the day of the funeral, it all started to unravel. First, the undertakers were going to collect the body and then at the last minute they were told ‘there is no body, we have ashes’.”
Fr Rupert recounted that the mourners could be divided into two parts, the first – a group of paid actors – was sitting there politely while another – a clan dressed in “puffer jackets and balaclavas” and dark glasses which included Clyde Zaube.
The priest said that he tried to speak to Zaube but he refused. Fr Rupert said that after realising that the whole thing was a set up, he told the people there to leave. The 49-year-old priest recalled, “When I realised it wasn’t a real funeral we said we can’t do this. We told them to leave and they all left relatively happily. If they had been a real family they would have been weeping and crying.” He added, “I was quite shaken afterwards. I felt very disturbed by it. It was very spooky.”
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