| abstract | - At age 28, Lawrence and Louis Schatz inherited the Coeur d'Coeurs funeral home, a family business, after their father passed away. The brothers changed the name of the business and ran it for the next 15 years. Lawrence ran the funerals and dealt with the public while Louis did the behind-the-scenes business. The brothers frequently stole jewelry and valuables from the corpses, hiding the stolen loot in the basement. They also found other ways to profit from the dead, including accepting bribes from private investigators like Emerson Cod wishing to investigate dead bodies. This criminal activity ended one day when, prior to a viewing, a widower caught Lawrence stealing jewelry straight out of the coffin. Louis immediately pretended that he had nothing to do with it and acted like he was ashamed of his brother. Although Louis successfully concealed his involvement in the grave-robbing scheme, Lawrence was maligned in the press and received 1,867 hate letters, several of which threatened his life. He became the subject of a police investigation. Nevertheless, Lawrence continued robbing the dead and accepting bribes from the likes of Emerson, who wanted Ned to investigate the body of Charlotte "Chuck" Charles. This would lead to his death, which, according to the Narrator, occurred 2 days, 8 hours and 43 minutes after he had been caught robbing a coffin.
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