Man Caught Urinating, Defecating on Ex-Wife's Grave: 'Bad Breakup'

A New Jersey man was caught urinating on his ex-wife's grave nearly five decades after their divorce.

Michael Andrew Murphy, 43, was horrified as he captured the desecration on September 18. The gravesite in the Tappan Reformed Church Cemetery in Orangetown, New York, was the resting place of his mother, Linda Torello.

Murphy told Newsweek that his mother's ex-husband was leaving feces and urine at her headstone for months, apparently holding onto a grudge from the 1970s. The suspect, 68-year-old Dean Eichler, was briefly married to Torello before they had a "bad breakup" in 1974.

"As long as I've been alive, I don't know of my mother having contact with him," said Murphy, who was born in 1979. His mother died in 2017.

Eichler is the father of Murphy's older sister but has always denied responsibility and remained absent from her life, according to Murphy.

He and his sister started finding deli bags filled with feces at their mother's grave in April, Murphy said. They figured the first one might have been dropped by a careless dog walker, but after the second bag, they got the police involved.

The cemetery allowed them permission to set up cameras. Earlier this month, the cameras revealed Eichler approaching the grave while his current wife waited in the car. The culprit continued to appear around 6:15 a.m. for three more days over the following week, but the images were not totally clear.

On September 18, Murphy visited the cemetery and captured the man on his cell phone. What he saw made him feel ill, he said on Facebook, where he posted the incriminating video.

"This is breaking my [heart]," said his caption. "A man from Bergen county New Jersey has been leaving bags of poo and pissing on my mother's tombstone almost every morning like a normal routine assisted by his wife. Also, we have weeks and months of evidence."

"At that moment, it was like my mother was dying again," Murphy told Newsweek. "No one should ever have to feel what I felt. When the dead are dead, they can't defend themselves."

The Orangetown Police Department confirmed to Newsweek that Eichler has been charged with public urination and an investigation is still ongoing.

Cemetery desecration, which may involve stealing from or vandalizing a plot, grave or burial place, can be prosecuted in New York state if the damages exceed $250.

Murphy has met this threshold for damages after hiring a hazmat company to remove his mother's urine-soaked decorations, having her headstone professionally cleaned and replacing some of the surrounding grass, he said.

Update: 09/30/22 2:05 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Michael Andrew Murphy.