A student fed her class her dead grandma, baked into a cookie

There are plenty of unusual ways to dispose of a deceased family member. The more traditionally minded might opt for an elaborate tombstone and lots of sobbing in a graveyard. If you’re looking to literally push the boat out, you might choose to send them off in the prow of a viking longship, or strap their corpse to an enormous pyre. All of the above are perfectly acceptable, if increasingly eccentric options. But, as a recent case from California proves, these ideas barely scratch the surface of the weird funerary iceberg.

Credit: Pixabay/ju-dit

According to the BBC, Davis County police are currently investigating claims that a local school girl fed her fellow students cookies containing her recently deceased grandmother’s ashes. The report states that the nine unfortunate students were “unaware of their contents” at the time of eating.

In an interview with American news channel Fox 40, one of the affected students revealed that the girl responsible for distributing the cookies, who cannot be named for legal reasons, “is going around telling everyone, basically at this point, that she had brought in these cookies to school with human ashes in them.”  

The ins and outs of exactly what took place is currently unclear, but it is being alleged that the macabre cookie operation involved several different distributors. Police Lt. Paul Doroshov, speaking to Fox News, revealed that the department are “currently looking at two students who allegedly carried out the morbid act”.

Obviously, there has been relatively little research into what the possible side effects may be of eating a human-chip-cookie, but authorities are apparently unconcerned about the long term impact. In a statement, staff at Da Vinci Charter Academy High School – where the event took place – were quick to point out that their primary concern was the “safety and well-being of the students”, before adding that there is “no health risk to our campus or to our students”.  

Despite the obvious distress caused to anyone who accidentally ate grandma, it is difficult to see what, if any repercussions await those who were responsible. According to Fox, baffled police reported that, though an investigation at the school is ongoing, “no one has been arrested and no charges have been filed”. When grilled further by the media, Lt. Doroshov elaborated, “What’s the crime?” Still, one can’t help but feel that there must be something at least slightly legally dubious about baking granny.

The school themselves have admitted that the matter is currently being dealt with internally – a situation which all parties are apparently happy with. Academy Principal, Tyler Millsap, stated to a bemused media gathering that “those who were involved are remorseful and this is now a personal family matter and we want to respect the privacy of the families involved.” Whether this unusual incident was just a misconstrued act of remembrance, or an ill executed joke, we may never know. One thing is for sure: if it was the latter, it was most certainly made in seriously bad taste – in every possible sense.