thegooddeath

The Woman Who Tried to Sell Human Toes Regurgitated By Dogs {PATRON-EXCLUSIVE VIDEO}

🚨 EXPERIMENT ALERT 🚨

As I alluded to in my last post: ABA- Always Be Alluding–we here at Haus Caitlin are experimenting with new styles of content that will make us less dependent on YouTube.

One plan is to develop a more podcast-like style to telling certain stories. Maybe even launch a podcast! Still using well-researched storytelling, but with more casual Caitlin, more personal stories, less travel and high production value. Having a podcast (perhaps with a video compo...

Why Don't You Make Videos Anymore, Caitlin?

Gentle Patrons,

There is a question I’ve been seeing, some of you may have even asked it:

Caitlin, please ma'am, tell us little guys why you don't make videos anymore?

Well first of all you adorable lil' cartoon mouse, if we care about FACTS here, I do make videos. We've made five videos in the last six months. That is... a respectable amount of videos? Even when I was deep into sabbatical I made videos. Even when I broke my ankle, I propped mysel...

Broadway Mummy and So Many Water Corpses: Caitlin's Death News You Can Use [Patron-Only]

Greetings my darlings and welcome to another edition of Caitlin's Death News You Can Use, a roundup of death stories carefully curated just for you by Sarah Chavez and yours truly. This month's crop of stories runs the gamut – from the bright lights of Broadway to the murky depths of a watery grave.

Plus, if you've been watching our videos for awhile, hella updates!

First, an old friend is back.

2025-04-25 21:21:07 +0000 UTC View Post

This Iconic Bridge Killed Its Builders [PATREON-EXCLUSIVE DOCUMENTARY]

Oh hi hello Patrons,

It's always, I feel, a good day to be our patron. But today is possibly...the best day EVER to be a patron? This is our first full length, fully realized video we've ever uploaded directly to Patreon.

Let's see how it goes, shall we! Will I like it, will you all like it? Who can say, life unfolds before our very eyes.

NOTE: This video is uploaded directly to Patreon (click play above), but an unlisted Youtube link can also be found 2025-03-28 17:28:14 +0000 UTC View Post

NEW VIDEO: The Orca Mother Who Carried Her Dead Calf Hundreds of Miles

WARNING:

This video is a heavy one. I'm proud of the advocacy message, but this story is not zippy and zany. But if you're like me and obsessed with both orcas and interactive grief centered on the dead body well.... you've come to the right place. Time to feel some feelings, people!

As one commenter has already posted on YouTube: "oh yeah marine mammal content on ask a mortician, we are back to the classics." Which, somehow feels both encouraging and like a read.

Thank yo...

Caitlin's Diatribe on the Couple "Forced" to Sit Next to a Corpse on a Plane [Patron-Only]

New main channel video tomorrow my little petunias.

But until then, you can listen to my thoughts on the above story. Then let me hear your thoughts!

You can watch the original interview with the Australian couple here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d_7FeXp_7k

See you tomorrow,

Caitlin

NEW VIDEO: The Mysterious Fresh Body in the Civil War Grave

Last time we left our plucky heroine, she was having "Big Feelings"™ about video making while writing a research-heavy book. Since then, I have decided, and you heard it here first, to make twelve pieces of content this year. I've spaketh it and it shall be real.

Some of the content will be more experimental. If it's REAL experimental it might be patron-only and not released on the main channel. (Note: Beyond the 12 pieces I'll still be making fun patron-only offerings, instagram pos...

Oh No Caitlin is Having Some Big Feelings

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”  -Ecclesiastes 3

“A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to reap.”  -The Byrds

[You know me, I love to start a post with a Bible quote.]

More than a year ago, I came out of sabbatical. I decided–after much hemming and hawing, weeping and gnashing of teeth– that for the time being I would give up owning the funeral home and ...

Smoke Book Club Replay [PATRON-ONLY]

Here we are my little snausages, a book club replay for those of you who could not make it on Thursday.

I really loved this one! It features a shocking tale from a nurse, hesitations from a mortuary worker, and a flock of murderous hell-parrots roaming the neighborhood. Plus a wide-ranging discussion on ways the book helped readers decide what they want done (or NOT done) with their dead bodies.

If you are in the United States, I hope you have a lovely few days off this week. Us...

NEW VIDEO: The Two Tragedies of the Marchioness

Hello deathlings,

We've been working on this video for several months, and it's a fun one. And by "fun" I actually mean "an absolute s*%tshow of incompetence from a dredger captain and a coroner that made a boating tragedy on the Thames a million times worse than it had to be. "

While researching for the Titanic book I came across the story of the pleasure cruise boat Marchioness. When ...

Book Club Thursday, New Video Friday

It's a busy week here at deathquarters!

Join me this week, for our second (and final) Smoke Gets in Your Eyes Book Club.

THIS THURSDAY 

Day: November 21

Time: 4 pm PST/7 pm EST

LINK: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85938862410?pwd=u1iak0dOnItZMCLOok42gUhFuQlHjg.1

As a reminder, we'll be talking about the second half of the book, from t...

VIDEO REPLAY: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes Patreon Book Club

For those of you who missed the first book club- and like, seriously, where were you?- here is the replay!

This was extremely fun, although to be honest I felt a bit rusty. I did almost nothing in the way of live events during my sabbatical and I am spending most of my days currently in my research and writing cave for hags (RAWCFH). But I know the public speaker is still inside me! Rise my queen, rise!

Example: here is me spending 15 minutes trying to remember WHEN I first learne...

NEW VIDEO: The Decapitated Head that Changed England

Yes I know, you've been waiting patiently for a video. And you deserve a video, you deserve the world.

How about this absolutely bonkers story on the rise, Lord Protectorate, death, exhumation, dragging through the streets, postmortem execution, decapitation, head on a spike, head's time on the roof of a government building, head's multiple different owners over hundreds of years, and at last, burial, of Oliver Cromwell?

2024-10-25 21:07:47 +0000 UTC View Post

Why, It's the Smoke Gets in Your Eyes Book Club Zoom Link [PATRON-ONLY]

Hello Readers (and listeners-- audiobookers welcome!),

THIS THURSDAY is the first Smoke Gets in Your Eyes Book Club.

DAY: October 24

TIME: 4pm PST/7pm EST

LINK: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/89882456467?pwd=BLo7sscMaxJuzUsIannsVmOa14bDUS.1

As a reminder, this session we'll be talking about the first half of the book, up ...

Cannibalism & Disney+: Caitlin's Death News You Can Use [PATRON ONLY]

Welcome morbid petunias to another edition of Caitlin's Death News You Can Use, where the lovely Sarah Chavez and I hand-pick death stories we think you will find interesting, thrilling, frustrating, etc. We just want to make you FEEL SOMETHING, you know?

Up first, an update from the Ask a Mortician vault.

The Franklin Expedition’s First Known Victim of Cannibalism Identified

Human remains that were recovered from the British Royal Navy’s doomed Franklin...

Reading You My Cremation Memoir (and a Book Club!)

"A girl always remembers the first corpse she shaves," begins the iconic funeral industry memoir* by mortician and author Caitlin Doughty.

*That's not a quote from someone, that's just me claiming that. If you can't hype yourself how the hell are you going to hype someone else, amiright?

It's been 10 YEARS. TODAY. This book absolutely changed my life and I'm still extremely proud of it. If you want a sense of what it's about, well, conveniently I have made a video reading you the ...

PATRON-ONLY: Everyone Stop Asking Me to React to this Titanic Animated Film with a Rapping Dog

Ok, fine, no one was asking for this. But once you learn about this movie, like me, it will haunt your every waking moment and the deepest darkest parts of your dreams. Be mindful before clicking on this video- you can never go back to a time before knowing it exists.

Hello from jolly ol' England where I not only celebrated my birthday but am filming TWO demure, mindful main channel docs for the fall. The old gang is back together. You are welcome to guess the topics of these videos, f...

Petrified Mummies & Millennial Saints: Caitlin's Death News You Can Use [PATRON ONLY]

Hello deathlings,

Did you know that every month Sarah Chavez (my longtime colleague at the Order of the Good Death) and I exchange death news stories?* This helps us stay informed, plan new content– last month's Ortiz Funeral Malfeasance video, for example– and generally geek out on the death news of the day. We thought you Patrons might want to join the club.

*Literally why would you know this?

After 128 Years in a Pennsylvania Funeral Home, a Beloved Mummy Is B...