6 People Who Faked Their Own Death (For Ridiculous Reasons)

We can admit that sometimes it might make sense to fake your death. You know, like if you're on the run from the mob, or maybe if it's in order to more effectively strike fear into the criminal underworld while working as a costumed vigilante.

Or you could go a totally different route and fake your death for a really asinine reason. Kind of like these people...

The Dearly Departed

Friends, we have gathered here to celebrate and remember Amir Vehabovic, who left us far too soon at the tender age of 45. Amir, a native of Bosnia, turned up dead of mysterious causes in March of 2007 , but damned if there wasn't a bona fide certificate of death and a real coffin delivered by the undertaker to be placed six-feet-under. We'd like to tell you hundreds turned out to bid a fond farewell to their passed friend. Well, maybe dozens. Or at least a couple. Come on, at least a couple people showed up to pay their respect, right?

The Cause of "Death"

Nope. Not even a couple. Only one person turned up for Amir's funeral, and that was his mother. This would only be kind of crushingly depressing, if Amir hadn't actually staged his death just to see how popular he was.

Now, we've all thought about what it would be like to watch our own funeral. You're curious, you want to find out who shows up, who doesn't, who cries and what members of the opposite sex would blurt out how they've always wanted to have filthy sex with you. Deciding the stew of sympathy was too much to resist, Amir hatched an elaborate plan to fake his own death, then forged a death certificate and bribed an undertaker to deliver the coffin. For his trouble, he learned first hand why most of us only think about our funerals.

Considerably more people mourned the passing of the Frasier dog.

See, there's no good outcome. If lots of people show up, they'll hate you when they discover the lie and, as Amir learned, if no one shows up, they already hate you. After no one showed up to his funeral, Amir learned a valuable lesson about life and, in an effort to change his ways... oh wait, no, he sent strongly worded letters to the 45 "friends" who didn't attend, which, really Amir, is an impossible stance to take. If they didn't care enough to attend your funeral when they thought you were actually dead, finding out that you're both alive and the creepiest guy they know probably isn't going to do the trick.

But look on the bright side, you are the only person who's not a figment of Mark Twain's imagination who gets a do-over on their funeral. And next time, we'd imagine it will be significantly less awkward for you.

The Dearly Departed

Earlier this year, tragic news struck Stuart Shortland: His lover of nearly five years, Dianne Craven, had suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage and passed away. Dianne and Stuart had been having their illicit affair for years, but not long before her death, Dianne had informed Stuart that she'd had his child, a baby girl named Ruby. But when Stuart traveled to see his lover and daughter, both had disappeared, and it was then that he was given the news that Dianne had died, as well as information about the funeral. Oh, and he found all of this out via text message, which studies show is the douchiest way to inform someone of terrible news.

NO!

The Cause of "Death"

Dianne is apparently really, really bad at breakups. Let's be honest here, there are two things you should never, ever relay to someone via text message. The first is, "I'm breaking up with you." The second? "Hey, UR loved 1 died, TTYL." Particularly when the second one is in no way, shape or form true. Dianne Craven managed to do both at once with Stuart Shortland.

Yes, the whole thing was simply a plan to break things off with Stuart without having to go through the pain or normalcy of actually telling the person that it's just not working out. Basically, Dianne took the old "it's not you, it's me" and ratcheted it up about 50 notches by replacing "me" with "brain hemorrhage." To make matters worse, Stuart's distress and heartbreak caused him to develop alopecia (think Stan Sitwell from Arrested Development) and go bald, so we can only imagine his reaction when photos of Dianne and her husband living happily in Bali surfaced online three months later. She's still alive to this day and still hasn't answered for her actions. Though, to be fair, she'd probably just fake a heart attack the day before the interview. The lesson we can really take away from this, though, is that when you fake your own death, it's probably a good idea to get rid of your Facebook page.

The Dearly Departed

Corey Taylor, a consultant from Chicago, died quite unexpectedly in 2007 from mysterious causes. Whatever the causes, a death certificate was fashioned and faxed to all of the appropriate places to get things in order after his passing, including to his cell phone company, Verizon. Of course, since apparently every Verizon customer has an army of people led by a bespectacled nerd (code name: The Network) following him or her around every second of the day, it didn't take long for the cell phone giant to discover that Corey wasn't exactly dead, and that he still owed them money.

The Cause of "Death"

If you take a look way down your cell phone contract in the fine print, it states that if you ever even think of leaving your carrier they get the house, the kids, your soul and a sizable termination fee. Unless, of course, you're dead.

Deciding a hero needed to stand up for the little guy who just wanted to text at a reasonable price, he decided to fake his own death to avoid paying the $175 he owed Verizon in accordance with a contract that he personally signed. He had been so fed up with crappy service and dropped calls that he decided to go to extremes in order to, in his own words, "send a message"; and in our words, "get out of paying $175 because he's a cheap-ass." And when Corey stood up and asked Verizon and its brethren, "Can you hear me now?" they responded in unison by flipping him the bird and taking his money.