OWASCO -- The family of murder victim David Castor is asking for help to exhume and move his body.
Immediately after the notorious Stacey Castor was convicted and sent off to prison last year, Janice Poissant, the first wife of murder victim David Castor, and David Castor Jr. vowed to move him from the grave in which Stacey Castor buried him. Today Castor's body remains side by side in a rural cemetery near Owasco with Stacey's first husband Michael Wallace who was also murdered by anti-freeze poisoning.
"The family wants to get some healing," Poissant told CNY Central's Jim Kenyon. "There's no healing process until David is moved."
But healing comes with a price. Janice Poissant figures it would cost $5,000 to re-bury David Castor, not including the cost of a new grave marker. Poissant is putting up posters asking for donations. Poissant says if it wasn't for a drawn out legal battle over the estate of David Castor, the fund raising effort to move his body would not even be necessary.
Poissant says Castor's estate, now valued at up to $50,000, sits in escrow. She says the courts have yet to decide whether David Castor Jr. is entitled to the money in accordance with a 1989 will, or whether another will which leaves everything to Stacey and her daughters should take effect. Even though that later will was proven to be fraudulent during the murder trial.
"The system keeps you hanging... It doesn't do anything to help the survivors to move on and heal." Poissant said.
The family's attorney Jim Maggesto says there are two court cases, one to settle the estate, and another against those who were allegedly involved in drafting the fake will. Maggesto says both are being held up until there's a ruling on Stacey Castor's appeal.
Poissant says the Castor case exposed a need for three changes: mandatory autopsies, a requirement that wills to be drawn up by lawyers, and streamlining the settlement of estates so that survivors of murder victims don't have to wait so long.
Stacey Castor is serving 51 years to life after her conviction last year of the anti-freeze murder of David Castor, Sr. and the attempted murder of her daughter Ashley Wallace in a failed attempt to blame her for the crime. Her case has attracted national attention.
Donations for the burial fund can be made at the following location:
David W. Castor Sr. Burial Fund
Attn: Bonnie Coulter
Account # 223338
Beacon Federal Bank
6311 Court Street Road
East Syracuse, NY 13057
