Joelle Leroy and her brother, Michel, are deeply devoted to their mother. So devoted, in fact, that when Lise Leroy died last year, the siblings petitioned the authorities on Reunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, to let them keep her corpse in a glass-fronted freezer at their home (she's been on ice in the morgue since July). The local magistrate demurred, so the Leroys appealed to a court in southwestern France. The answer came back Monday: "Non." French law decrees that Mama must be buried or cremated. The kids -- who are 52 and 50, by the way -- say they'll consider an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Chillin' With Mom
Joelle Leroy and her brother, Michel, are deeply devoted to their mother. So devoted, in fact, that when Lise Leroy died last year, the siblings petitioned the authorities on Reunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, to let them keep her corpse in a glass-fronted freezer at their home (she's been on ice in the morgue since July). The local magistrate demurred, so the Leroys appealed to a court in southwestern France. The answer came back Monday: "Non." French law decrees that Mama must be buried or cremated. The kids -- who are 52 and 50, by the way -- say they'll consider an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
