05 October,2014 07:48 AM IST | | Agencies
Says he would have been okay with it
Woman digs up father's grave, New Hampshire, Hatke news, weird news, Melanie Nash
Lancastar: A female lawyer, accused of ransacking the New Hampshire grave of her father in search of his real will, wants a judge to suppress her written statement to police that she dug it up "with respect" and that he "would be OK with it." Prosecutors allege Melanie Nash, 52, conspired to remove her father's remains from the Colebrook Village Cemetery in May this year.
Melanie Nash conspired to remove her father's remains from the Colebrook Village Cemetery in May. Pic for representational purpose
The burial vault of businessman Eddie Nash, who died in 2004, was found cracked with the casket opened and his remains searched through.
The Caledonian Record reports that Melanie's lawyer, William Albrecht, filed a motion last month arguing that statements made after her arrest and before she was advised of her Miranda rights should be excluded because they violate her right against self-incrimination. Coos County Attorney John McCormick said Nash showed her "free will" in coming to police and waiving her Miranda rights.
Police believe the casket was pulled out after Melanie commented about her father being buried with the real will. She only found a pack of cigarettes in his hand and no will. Melanie told police she did not receive anything when her father died and had been thinking of digging up the grave for years to prove her sister, Susie, "hid the will". Susie Nash has said there was only one will when her father's estate plan was done in 1995 and everyone involved knew about it.
In her written statement to police on June 11, Melanie wrote that she met up with others to go to the cemetery to dig up her father's grave. Four people have been indicted in the case. She ended her statement with: "What we all did was dig up my father's coffin, Eddie Nash, looking for documents. We did it with respect."
Nash, who died of a heart attack at 68, started an equipment business in 1979, still run by his family. He's since been reburied.
