From bad to hearse: Suit over funeral-car explosion

KATHIANNE BONIELLO

 NY Post

Last Updated: 5:01 PM, October 25, 2009

Posted: 3:53 AM, October 25, 2009

She went out with a bang, and it's left her Bronx family fuming.

Glatha Byrd's final send-off was "apocalyptic" -- as the hearse carrying her body exploded and caught fire on the Major Deegan Expressway, says family lawyer James Franzetti.

The family has filed suit in Bronx Supreme Court over the May 13, 2008, incident, accusing the Griffin Peters Funeral Home of causing some of Byrd's relatives "severe and serious" injuries.

Valerie Davis, wife of the Harlem funeral home's owner, Keith Davis, called the suit "ridiculous."

She said she had heard the relatives, who are also related to her husband, joking about the engine fireworks.

And, she added, no one indicated they were hurt as they removed the "unsinged" casket from the hearse, placed it in the back of an SUV and kept going -- leaving behind the shaken funeral director, who had been driving the hearse.

Little did they know the Ferncliff Cemetery burial in Hartsdale couldn't go on without him -- giving the funeral party an hour to kill beside Byrd's open grave.

Franzetti claims the casket was smoke damaged and the flowers were burned.