Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Connecticut Burial Offer to Tsarnaev Draws Lawsuit

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (CN) - Burying suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev near her family plot will "transform the location into a theme park devoted to hatred," a woman claims in court.

Kim Genovese demands an injunction in New Haven Superior Court against the Mount Carmel Burial Ground Society and Paul Douglas Keane, a retired Vermont teacher who owns four plots in the Hamden, Conn., cemetery.

She filed her complaint Wednesday in New Haven Superior Court, but Tsarnaev's body has since been buried at an undisclosed location, according to media reports.

Authorities in Worcester, Mass., would only say apparently that the remains were no longer in their city and had been entombed.

Keane allegedly offered one of his family plots to the Tsarnaev estate after news reports broke earlier this week about the difficulty that a funeral home faced in trying to find a place to lay the suspected bomber's remains to rest.

The 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot to death by police several days after allegedly setting off two explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, killing three and injuring more than 200 others. His 19-year-old brother Dzokhar Tsarnaev was arrested and faces the death penalty or life in prison if convicted of various charges related to the terrorist act.

Keane wrote on his "Anti-Yale" blog that he made the offer as "a desire to promote good will," according to Gneovese's complaint. "He contends he owns the plot and that no one can tell him what to do with it."

Genovese said her family owns two plots at the cemetery, and that one of those plots marks her mother's final resting place.

"Upon his death, she expects her father to be buried there as well," the complaint states.

Genovese said she "purchased her plots, and buried loved ones in the cemetery, so as to have a peaceable location at which they can commune with memories of their ancestors, and to have an expectation they, too, will rest in peace aside loved ones."

"Burial of Mr. Tsarnaev at the cemetery will transform the location into a theme park devoted to hatred, and will deprive the plaintiff of the use and enjoyment of their burial plots due to inevitable protests and possibly vandalism," the complaint continues.

Genovese said she entered into a contract to purchase the lots with the assurance her family was "buying access to a safe and tranquil location to bury their dead."

"An implied warranty of the contract is that transfer of the plots would not be made by co-owners for purposes of grandiose publicity stunts, or to make larger political purposed by offering essentially private burial plots as 'celebrity graves,'" the lawsuit states.

Burying Tsarnaev at the cemetery "would permit burial plots to be used for notorious purposes," according to the complaint.

"The plaintiff had a reasonable expectation that the final resting place of their loved ones would be free from vandalism which would deface the property and protesting which infringes on the plaintiff's rights to peaceful enjoyment of their plots as well as their family members' rights to rest in peace," the complaint continues.

In addition to breach of warranty and nuisance claims, Genevose claimed that she will also suffer emotional distress without an injunction to prevent the "burial of a widely hated and despised corpse."

Genovese is represented by Norman Pattis of Bethany.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...