Mother and daughter in bizarre body-smuggling plot
Ferry Online Travel News 08/04/2010
Two taken into custody after allegedly trying to sneak the corpse of a dead man onto a plane.
It could have been straight off the script of a macabre Hollywood comedy, when two women arrived at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport with a 91-year-old-man slumped in a wheelchair and wearing sunglass. They told airport staff he always slept like that.
Andrew Millea, a member of staff at the airport, was not taken in by their explanation.
As he helped move Kurt “Willi” Jarant from the taxi to the wheelchair, the dead man’s “ice cold” body fell against Millea’s face. After he pushed the wheelchair to check-in Millea contacted authorities.
Gitta Jarant - the man’s wife - and daughter Anke were insistent that Willi had been alive when they arrived at the airport to catch an easyJet flight to Berlin.
Anke, a 42 year-old care worker, said they were upset to have been accused of trying to smuggle the body onto a plane full of holidaymakers, while 66 year-old Gitta said, “I would not have done such a terrible thing.”
Police think the pair was trying to avoid expensive fees levied for repatriating a dead person’s body. The Jarants, who lived in Oldham, Greater Manchester, were arrested for failing to give notification of death.
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