Ashes to diamonds?

To the connoisseurs of macabre stuff - here it comes.

NEW YORK- Bob Valentino, Sr. remembers the morning his late wife returned home. It was last July, about nine months after she succumbed to an aggressive cancer at age 51, and about six months after he sent more than 200 grams of her ashes to LifeGem. This Chicago-area company (slogan: "Love Lives On") promised to transform her remains into a pure, sparkling and everlasting diamond.

I knew that I wanted a part of her to be with me all the time," says Valentino, 67...

The guy worked as a butcher in a supermarket - so why this is a question at all? Wouldn't a marinated finger do? Probably tried it with his first wife, and it wasn't that convenient...

Alongside a mounted deer's head and a rack full of hunting rifles on the dark-paneled living room walls is a photo gallery crowded with pictures of children and grandchildren, but mostly of Patti.

I immediately put the ring on my finger and then I got in my car and started driving from place to place to show it to everyone. People couldn't believe it.

That last statement is true - I can hardly believe my eyes.

Mounted deer's head - mmm... The guy is certainly into trophies in a big way.
What happens if he marries a few more times? Probably something like this:













A question to the LifeGem folks: don't you want to consider branching out into converting live persons into diamonds? Elders have a backlog you wouldn't believe, I swear.

And you can keep the resulting diamonds to yourselves, you know...