History Main / CrammingTheCoffin

* Allegedly this method was used by TheMafia to dispose of bodies; secretly burying the victims of mob hits along with the bodies of those who died of more natural causes. It was Joe Bonanno, the namesake boss of the Bonanno crime family from 1931 to 1968, [[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/godfather-of-new-york-mafia-and-man-of-honour-1.1057752 who popularized the concept]], as he owned a funeral parlor and used "double-decker" coffins to dispose of murder victims for the New York mafia.
* Occasionally, a [[http://wreg.com/2014/01/24/cemetery-owner-arrested-for-burying-multiple-people-in-graves/ funeral home]] will be charged with burying more than one body in a plot. In this case, it's not to cover up a murder but to fraudulently charge more than one family for the same piece of ground.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E14GoodbyeIowa Goodbye Iowa]]", Initiative soldiers search Spike's crypt, reading to kill any undead person on sight. Realising from the still-warm television that someone has been there recently, they lift the lid off a stone sarcophagus, only to find a skeleton covered by a burial shroud. After they leave, Spike appears from beneath the corpse. Buffy herself has pulled the same trick when hiding from vampires. Similarly, Giles once hid in an occupied drawer in a morgue.

* This is presumed to happen to Abigail Craven and Tully Alford at the end of the 1991 film version of ''Film/TheAddamsFamily''. PortalBook-summoned hurricane-force winds blow them out of the Addams mansion, and they land in freshly-dug graves. If they survived the fall, they could also be BuriedAlive.

* In ''Film/MissNobody'', Sarah Jane uses [[soiler:Mr. Ketchum]]'s wake as an opportunity to hide [[spoiler:Nether]]'s body in his coffin.

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* In season 3 of ''Series/{{Dexter}}'', not wanting to divulge the methods of his usual lifestyle, Dexter teaches Miguel Prado to dispose of bodies by burying them past the point of visibility within a to-be-used grave, intending them to be hidden beneath a new coffin.

Contrast TogetherInDeath, where lovers in life get buried together after they die. A sister trope is CoffinContraband, where something other than a body is hidden in a coffin.

* ''Series/DeadMansGun:'' In an early episode, a sleazy undertaker murders his partner and hides the body inside of a cabinet while claiming the man went out of town. After he himself dies due to a scheming employee, that employee puts his body inside the cabinet to, claiming that the undertaker had wanted to be buried inside it, thus burying both men.

* ''Series/YancyDerringer'': In "Duel at the Oaks", Yancy agrees to "shoot" Charles[=LeBow=] in a [[TenPacesAndTurnDuel fake duel]] in order to smoke out the man who's trying to kill [=LeBow=] for real. When, at the "funeral", the body of [=LeBow=]'s partner is discovered in what should have been [=LeBow=]'s empty coffin, the City Administrator doubts Yancy's tale and plans to lock him in prison as a material witness.

* Allegedly this method was used by TheMafia to dispose of bodies; secretly burying the victims of mob hits along with the bodies of those who died of more natural causes. [[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2003-10-08/mafia-double-decker-coffins-used-for-body-disposal/1489720 Supposedly the double-decker coffins were used as early as the 1920s, and were the brainchild of Carlo Corsentino, an undertaker member of the [=DeCavalcante=] family]].

* PlayedForLaughs in Episode 11 of ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'', where a group of undertakers carrying a coffin climb into it one by one as they become exhausted.

* In "The Meek" in ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' #32, a serial killer uses his day job as a gravedigger at Potter's Field to hide the bodies of his victims by interring them in pauper's graves he is digging.

* In ''Film/AHardDay'', the main character runs over a homeless man on the way to his mother's funeral. He then... well, you get the idea.
* ''Film/DarkNightOfTheScarecrow'': After Otis and Skeeter dig up Bubba's grave and discover [[spoiler:his body in his coffin]], Otis murders Skeeter and buries the body in Bubba's grave alongside the coffin.

* ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'': In "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax", the villains are too squeamish to commit murder outright, so they chloroform Lady Frances and hide her in the coffin containing the body of her old nurse, which is due to buried the next day. Which is still murder, only a slow and painful one by asphyxiation.
* In the Creator/ElleryQueen novel ''The Greek Coffin Mystery'', the Queens search a dead man's man coffin for a missing will, and find two bodies inside instead of one.
* In ''Death Toll: A Mystery'' by Jim Kelly, the bodies buried at a cemetery are being moved to higher ground to avoid flooding. When the grave of Nora Tilden, buried in 1982, is opened, gravediggers are shocked to find another body, a skeleton, on top of the casket. The body had to have been thrown into Nora's grave on the day she was buried.

* ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'': In "Stiffed", a family is lifting the coffin containing their grandmother out of a hearse when they drop it due to the weight. Grandma's body and the body of a naked man fall out. When the team investigates, they discover the naked man was the mortician who had prepared the grandmother's body. Ultimately they discover he had been coerced by a serial killer into disposing of bodies for him, and the team finds two more cases of second bodies concealed in coffins, and one of a body buried underneath a coffin.

* The Cramped Casket enemy in ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' is this coming around, not as the result of disposing of a murder victim, but cheapskate tenement landlords only buying one coffin for a family ''to share'' after TheVirus killed everyone in the house. The result is [[BodyOfBodies a nightmarish heap of screaming, fused-together zombies.]]

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[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* ''Series/SilentWitness'': In "Hippocratic Oath", a hearse crashes and two bodies are discovered in the coffin. The team is charged with discovering the identity of the John Doe corpse.
* ''Series/TheDoctorBlakeMysteries'': In "Mortal Coil", a coffin is dropped at a funeral that Jean is attending, revealing the body of Jean's friend and the local junk man. The investigation later reveals this is the second body to have been disposed of in this manner.
* In season 3 of ''Series/{{Dexter}}'', not wanting to divulge the methods of his usual lifestyle, Dexter teaches Miguel Prado to dispose of bodies by burying them past the point of visibility within a to-be-used grave, intending them to be hidden beneath a new coffin.

* Part of a plot by an undertaker to get rid of his wife in the ''Series/{{Thriller}}'' episode "'Til Death Do Us Part".

* The "same grave" variant is used in an episode of ''Series/{{Bones}}'', though it was already occupied when the murderer hid the second body there.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E14GoodbyeIowa Goodbye Iowa]]", Initiative soldiers search Spike's crypt, reading to kill any undead person on sight. Realising from the still-warm television that someone has been there recently, they lift the lid off a stone sarcophagus, only to find a skeleton covered by a burial shroud. After they leave, Spike appears from beneath the corpse. Buffy herself has pulled the same trick when hiding from vampires. Similarly, Giles once hid in an occupied drawer in a morgue.
* Variant in the ''Series/{{Scandal}}'' episode "Run." Olivia is kidnapped, and the bad guys smuggle her out of her apartment by hiding stuffing her BoundAndGagged inside a body bag, with her murdered neighbor placed on top of her to further the ruse.
* ''Series/FatherBrown'': In "The Curse of Amenhotep", the killer attempts to dispose of Father Brown by sealing him inside a sarcophagus.
* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': In ''[[Recap/SherlockSpecialTheAbominableBride The Abominable Bride]]'', Sherlock thinks that there is a second body buried beneath the coffin of Emelia Ricoletti. [[spoiler:However, his attempt to dig it up is part of a drug-induced hallucination so the viewer never learns if he was correct or not.]]

* ''Series/{{Motive}}'': In "Fallen Angel", a thief used a grave in an old cemetery to [[CoffinContraband hide a cache of stolen diamonds]]. He also uses the grave to dispose of the body of his partner, whom he has just murdered.
* In one episode of Series/{{Columbo}}, the killer -- a funeral director -- disposes of the body of the victim by cremating it along with one of his legitimate jobs.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Film - Live Action]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]

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* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellArise''. The first episode opens with Public Security disinterring the grave of a military officer whose cyber brain they need to access. Instead they find the coffin empty [[BoobyTrap except for an android that tries to kill them]]. Later Motoko goes back to the grave site and finds another coffin buried underneath the first, with the officer's body.

* In ''Death Toll: A Mystery'' by Jim Kelly, the bodies buried at a cemetery are being moved to higher ground to avoid flooding. When the grave of Nora Tilden, buried in 1982, is opened, grave diggers are shocked to find another body, a skeleton, on top of the casket. The body had to have been thrown into Nora's grave on the day she was buried.
* Literature/BrotherCadfael has to resort to this trick ''A Morbid Taste for Bones'', as well as some quick talking to explain how the dessicated bones of a saint suddenly weigh as much as a mortal man.
* The ''Literature/LordDarcy'' case "The Muddle of the Woad", a murder victim is hidden in a coffin, and is discovered when the carpenter tries to deliver the coffin to the widow of the man who it had been intended for and finds it much heavier than it was supposed to be.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/TheCloser'': In "Saving Face", the funeral of an former police colleague of Flynn and Provenza takes an unexpected turn when the casket is dropped, revealing not only their friend's body, but that of a nude, blonde woman.

* ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'': In "Stiffed", a family is lifting the coffin containing their grandmother out of a hearse when they drop it due to the weight. Grandma's body and the body of a naked man fall out. When the team investigates, they discover the naked man was the mortician who had prepared the grandmother's body. Ultimately they discover he had being coerced by a serial killer into disposing of bodies for him, and the team finds two more cases of second bodies concealed in coffins, and one of a body buried underneath a coffin.

* In one episode of Series/{{Columbo}}, the killer, a funeral director, disposes the body of the victim by cremating it along with one of his legitimate jobs.

* Occasionally, a [[http://wreg.com/2014/01/24/cemetery-owner-arrested-for-burying-multiple-people-in-graves/ funeral home]] will be charged with burying more than one body in a plot. In this case, it's not to cover up a murder, but to fraudulently charge more than one family for the same piece of ground.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. In "Goodbye Iowa", Initiative soldiers search Spike's crypt, reading to kill any undead person on sight. Realising from the still-warm television that someone has been there recently, they lift the lid off a stone sarcophagus, only to find a skeleton covered by a burial shroud. After they leave, Spike appears from beneath the corpse. Buffy herself has pulled the same trick when hiding from vampires. Similarly, Giles once hid in an occupied drawer in a morgue.

* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': In ''Recap/SherlockSpecialTheAbominableBride'', Sherlock thinks that there is a second body buried beneath the coffin of Emelia Ricoletti. [[spoiler:However, his attempt to dig it up is part of a drug-induced hallucination so the viewer never learns if he was correct or not.]]

Contrast TogetherInDeath, where lovers in life get buried together after they die.

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': The 'body buried in the grave beneath a coffin' is used in "Beyond the Grave".