Mum who has been fascinated by death since she was 10 weds a man who races hearses and they’re already planning a terrifying Halloween
A ‘Halloween obsessed’ former embalmer who married a hearse-driving junkyard owner is already planning how to decorate their home on October 31 – and her spooky plans include a 12-foot high skeleton and four real funeral caskets.
Mum-of-three, Louise Pachella, 38, first became fascinated by death aged 10, when her mother, Jill Hall, 60, was training to be a nurse and brought her along to an anatomy class to watch a cat being dissected.
Three daughters, Ashley, eight, Rachel, six, and Dani, four, have since been added to their ‘His and Hearse Racing’ team, and the quirky Los Angeles family revel in Halloween every year, decorating their three-bed home with decorations worth $5,000 (£4,240), including a nine-foot plastic spider and half a dozen plastic skeletons.
Louise, who is also now an author on embalming, said: “Why be boring when you can choose excitement and creativity?
Louise added: “Death doesn’t have to be this scary thing – it can be fascinating and interesting.”
Growing up in California, Louise had an early education in death.
Louise added: “They were dissecting cats to understand the anatomy and one student ran out to be sick because they found kittens inside one of the cats.
“My mum gave me one of the kittens and a scalpel and encouraged me to learn from it.”
She said: “Our own cat at home would often bring ‘treasures’ back for us, like mice and rats, and I would watch their bodies rot away and study how they decayed in nature.”
At 13, Louise saw a human body for the first time when she accompanied her mum to a cadaver lab.
Leaving school at 17, Louise was unsure of her future until she stumbled on a newspaper article advertising a college programme in mortuary science.
“It ticked every box. I realised I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” she said.
“We covered everything – I would practise embalming on the cadavers, learn to remake facial features after trauma or learn about the ceremonies and customs associated with different religions and their funeral arrangements.”
Louise added: “The gratification that comes from helping leave people with a positive last memory of their loved one is astounding and very special.
“I knew that I would be impacting a family for the rest of their lives.”
She said: “There was one funeral for a gentleman who always wore horrendous Hawaiian shirts and they brought a rack of shirts to the funeral service for guests to wear.
“At the end of the service, when it was time for me to put the casket into the crypt, I went and picked the most horrible shirt I could find, put it on over the top of my suit and went about the solemn procedure as normal.
In 2008, when she was working at the mortuary, Louise met her husband.
“I first met Dan when he towed a car for my friend and he was telling me about his junkyard – which is basically a graveyard for cars – and it really piqued my interest,” she said.
She added: “I was actually terrified of driving at the time, but I went along, and what was he driving? A hearse.”
Dan, who still drives his funeral car on track, turned out to have another hearse too which he keeps safely parked at home.
As their relationship evolved, Louise started to learn about the manufacture of the derby cars with Dan before eventually, joining in with the racing.
And Dan was quick to embrace Louise’s unusual interests too.
“I come up with the strangest things, and he’s always right there helping to make them a reality.”
Tying-the-knot in a ceremony in Las Vegas in 2013, Louise and Dan went on to welcome their three daughters.
She add: “They have never been afraid of what we do, they’re just very curious, like I was.”
And it’s become a right of passage for them to join in the derby racing.
“By the time we got to 2020, when my eldest started racing, we decided to make it official and named ourselves the His and Hearse Racing team.”
The family’s eccentricities do not end there, however, with even more excitement at home.
“When I was pregnant with our first daughter, my husband was supposed to be disposing of this old helicopter, but I told him to bring it home.
“I had this vivid image of this amazing playground we could make from the helicopter, which eventually we did.
She added: “The kids and their friends love it – but I think the parents like it more!”
And there’s another unusual addition to the family home.
“We called him Krona Rex after the coronavirus pandemic as we got him in 2020, and decided to dress him up for every occasion – with bunny ears for Easter, a wig and dress for Mother’s Day or with a nappy and wings for Valentine’s Day.”
But nothing compares to Louise’s Halloween displays.
“We have probably spent well over $5,000 on Halloween decorations over the years and every year is bigger and better.
“I have at least six five-foot skeletons, one 12ft skeleton, a 9ft spider and four real caskets we use, that I keep in a truck in the backyard.
Louise added: “In lockdown, we did the scariest thing I could think of – home-schooling – and created a terrifying mock classroom.”
This year Louise is planning a new scary scene.
And while Louise is planning her next Halloween extravaganza, she is also busy writing books.
“I’m writing multiple books now about embalming but I’m also helping other authors know how to portray funerals and dead bodies and decomposition accurately,” she said.
Louise added: “The book will include a number of paper dolls which illustrate the stages of decomposition, including the layers of autopsy, as well clothes and accessories to dress the dolls in and paper casket that you can cut out and decorate.
“The aim is to illustrate what happens to bodies after death in a way that isn’t gruesome and create a hands-on approach to pre-planning your funeral wishes.”
Louise wants people to approach death with curiosity and hopes she will “facilitate conversations about death without taboo or fear.”
Link to Louise’s website here – https://www.louisepachella.com/fun/kronarexthedinosaur