LOS ANGELES — Marilyn Monroe, who has been dead 47 years, still carries enough cachet that the crypt above where she was entombed was sold Monday on eBay for $4,602,100.
Elsie Poncher, whose husband, Richard Poncher, is buried in the crypt at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park, said she wanted to sell it to pay off the mortgage on her Beverly Hills home.
Richard Poncher died 23 years ago at 81. According to Elsie, he bought the crypt from Joe DiMaggio, who was in the midst of his divorce from Monroe in 1954.
Elsie Poncher plans to move her husband’s remains to the adjoining crypt designated for her, and when the time comes, she’ll be cremated.
She said that when her husband was dying, he made a request. “He said, ‘If I croak, if you don’t put me upside down over Marilyn, I’ll haunt you the rest of my life.’ “
Right after the funeral, Elsie said, she conveyed her husband’s wish to the funeral director. “I was standing right there, and he turned him over,” she said.
