It was quite the undertaking.
Thieves stole 17 coffins from a warehouse in Melbourne’s west, Victorian police said.
“This break-in is one out of the box,” Inspector Tony Long from the Maribyrnong local area command said. “I’m deadly serious, this is a weird one.”
In a statement posted on Wednesday to the command’s Facebook page, Long wrote that on 15 January two men broke into a warehouse in Braybrook and “helped themselves” to the coffins, loading them into a small truck.
Neither the men, nor the coffins, had been seen since, he wrote. “I’ve heard of some strange things being pinched in the past, but this one just about tops the list,” Long said.
The coffins were excess stock being stored by a Melbourne funeral parlour. “If you happen to be at your local watering hole and someone sidles up to you with a, ‘Psst – do you want to buy a cheap coffin, fell off the back of a truck,’ give Crime Stoppers a call,” he said.
He then apologised “for the puns”.
Long told Guardian Australia on Thursday police had received some leads, with reports of truck sightings in the Braybrook area.
When Guardian Australia suggested the thieves would be mortified, he replied: “That’s a good one, I hadn’t thought of that one.” “But I do realise that this is a grave undertaking, and it was a bit stiff of the men to do this.
“I just hope they don’t have 17 bodies to dispose of as well.”
The coffins were worth $2,000 each, Long said, and he suspected the men would try to sell them “or make fish tanks out of them”.
The parlour owner had been overseas and did not report the theft until this week. “They’re not too happy of course, but being in the line of business they are they would have to look on the brighter side of life.”
