Thomas Noguchi, Cielo Coroner

Strange Happenings:
Verdugo Hills Cemetery, meets Cielo Drive Coroner, Thomas Noguchi.
Lynn said: "Thomas Noguchi did the autopsies for Cielo Drive and was also involved in the bodies that washed away from the cemetery. There are actual photos from a local newspaper where people found human remains such as feet in their garden"

 "Also, students from a local high school, broke into the cemetery and were propping up dead bodies, putting cigarettes in the deceased mouth and having their pictures taken with them. The students were eventually caught".

Thomas Noguchi - Interviewed November 1986 by Douglas Stein

Noguchi Sates: "After a torrential rain the whole topsoil of the old cemetery in Verdugo Hills, California, started sliding. It happened to contain over ahundred bodies that floated first across the street, then into the yards and into the living rooms of houses and the doorway of the supermarket. It was a tragic scene. My staff tried to ascertain who had jurisdiction by calling a county lawyer. I said, "Forget it, I am going." I was the first on the scene to represent a governmental agency, and I ordered the public works' heavy bulldozers in. Those bodies posed a health hazard. So we moved.
The Verdugo Hills persons had drowned in a flood and had been buried soaking wet in caskets. These bodies changed to an almost soaplike consistency that resists decay. The corpses looked more like horror-movie ghouls than ordinary corpses. Adipocere, as it's called, happens when a combination of moisture and highly alkaline soil reacts with fat tissue and solidifies into a soaplike consistency".
Full Story: http://www.astralgia.com/webportfolio/omnimoment/archives/interviews/noguchi.html
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Related Story from Kimchi:
"Vandals Exhume Bodies From Crypts"... 11-14-96 - Yvonne Milosevic - LA Times.
In a gruesome act, vandals broke into eight crypts at the abandoned Verdugo Hills Cemetery and exhumed the bodies, propping one corpse up against the crypt and shoving a cigarette in its mouth, Los Angeles police said Wednesday.  A volunteer caretaker who last visited the cemetery in October discovered the macabre scene Tuesday afternoon.  The mortuary is trying to locate family members of the exhumed bodies.
In the 1970s the cemetery fell into disrepair. It lost its license in 1976 and since then has experienced a series of bizarre pranks and natural disasters.  Heavy rains in 1978 sent corpses and coffins sliding down the hillside into neighbors' yards, leaving 41 graves partially exposed. The city spent more than $200,000 to collect and store the corpses and build a retaining wall to prevent another landslide.  Even so, five bodies were exposed after heavy rains in February 1980.
Full Story Here:  http://articles.latimes.com/1996-11-14/local/me-64634_1_exhumed-bodies
Thanks Lynn and Kimchi!!

Wavy's Hog Farm - Submitted by Lynn!

Lynn writes: "Here is an article about the Hog Farm".

http://www.arthurmag.com/2007/07/31/communes-in-sunland-ca-past-lives-of-new-yorker-art-critics/

"In the comments, you will find information on how to access the trails leading up to the Hog Farm.  I believe the house is still standing- the hillsides around it were engulfed in flames during the Station Fire in 2009.  The photos I found were actually more of the hillside (charred remains) than of the house.  I did however, locate this photo which was taken during the fires". 

Lynn continues: "Sunland-Tujunga is a funky little community.  It is an interesting area, considering it borders Burbank which houses many of the movie/TV studios and yet, it seems so far removed from the surrounding cities.  Tujunga is sort of Topanga without all of the money...folks with the same ideals, grass roots politics etc.  It is in the farthest corner of Los Angeles, nestled in the foothills of the mountains.  The community started out as a utopian society/commune.  It has never lost its character.  It is home to artists, bikers, former hippies and horse farms.  It once upon a time also had issues with drug dealers/meth labs.  Currently, Sunland-Tujunga serves as the community of Charming, in Sons of Anarchy.  Here is some info on the Hog Farm and Sunland/Tujunga aka "the rock".

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The farm, as Romney suggests, is more than a summer camp for misfits. It is a thriving spiritual community, an experiment in utopian living. You get the idea when you attend the highpoint (literally) of the Hog Farm day, just before bedtime in the cantonment’s biggest dome. Shrouded in parachute silk and brightly lighted, the dome can be seen for miles on a smogless night. You can only guess at what the citizens of Sunland-Tujunga imagine is possibly going on inside.  What is going on is this:

Inside the dome 30-odd men, women and children, lotus-squating, clad in an assortment of strange clothes. Eyes closed, hands clasped in two concentric circles, they are humming in unison...”Om.” “Om” is a loud resonant, brain-buzzing sound made by vibrating air in the sinuses. The choral hum is punctuated by improvisatory moans, pants, and clucks, it dissolves into an athletic chant: “HOG-HOG-HOG-HOG-HOG-HOG-HOG!” Then someone in a Donald Duck jersey stands and gently raises everyone, like a circle of dominoes in reverse. Climax! All fall down. “The Circle Joke” is over, and the Hog Farmers, spent and blissful, break the circle and retire to their sleeping bags for the night.

Avante Garde Magazine, Issue 5, by Peter Schjeldahl

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 A blogger gives directions to the Hog farm:

Jeff W, Wed Nov 17, 2010 at 09:50:16 PM

 

There were a couple of ways to get there.

1) you’d drive up into Riverwood Ranch on the other side of the wash at the base of Oro Vista before you drive into Big Tujunga. Anyhow, you continue on Oro Vista into Riverwood Ranch,turn L on Doane Cyn Rd., L again on Eby Cyn Rd, R on Doane Eby, and then a fairly quick left onto Dody Rd., heading into the foothills. You’ll come upon a house standing by itself. Doesn’t look to be the original house necessarily, but I’m sure that old house was incorporated into the footprint.

The other way to reach it was to go out Foothill Bl, heading towards Lake View Terrace . . . , cross over the second bridge, and turn right at the first opportunity, W.Connover St. which spills you onto a dirt road and within a couple of minutes you are on fire roads heading up into the hills. I wouldn’t know if the roads are still open . . . they were open or closed over the years based on the whims of the County. It wouldn’t be surprising if the place were still being used . . . As a matter of fact, I looked at google maps, and I see the house there.  The hillside has been terraced around it. I fished for an address and google offer up 9401 Tujunga Valley St. 91342. Since I know Tujunga Valley St is a little dead end street at the edge of the wash . . .I’m assuming the house address is linked to a mail box at the bottom of the road. The house is actually on Dody Rd. Go on Zillow.com to get a fairly decent picture of it. 

Jeff Warrender . . .S/T born and bred. 

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Lynn continues: "Almost as interesting as the Hog Farm, is the Verdugo Hills Cemetery. I have included a link here".

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM7RH7_Verdugo_Hills_Cemetery_Tujunga_CA

"The Satanic rituals that they are talking about involved students from a local high school, who broke into the cemetery and were propping up dead bodies, putting cigarettes in the deceased mouth and having their pictures taken with them. The students were eventually caught".

Thanks Lynn!  You're Awesome!