Bill Edgar Photo: supplied
Australian private investigator Bill Edgar is a 'concierge for the dying', carrying out their final wishes.
When he started making headlines for gate crashing funerals on behalf of the dead, he was dubbed the 'Coffin Confessor'.
The dying may ask him to destroy evidence of a long-held secret or keep greedy relatives away from a client's loot while they lie dying at a nearby hospital.
He shares stories about what he's learned from the dying in his new book, The Afterlife Confessional.
Everyone goes to the grave with at least one secret, he tells RNZ's Jesse Mulligan on Afternoons.
"Every person on the planet has a skeleton in the closet. It's just a matter if you want to let it out or not. It could be good, bad, funny or sad, it doesn't matter what it is. And I don't just crash a funeral let loose on the bad stuff. I've let some beautiful messages go, or some really funny ones, or I've done a face-to-face delivering gifts from the afterlife things like that."
The families of the dying can be pretty unedifying at times, Edgar said.
"It's amazing the vultures that come out in families, it's really heartbreaking sometimes. I stood with a lady in a hospital bed who is dying and her son was trying to take the rings off her finger so he could pawn them for money.
"Another couple were on their deathbed and the daughter came and just took their car. So, I see the worst of people, but also the love of other people."
Sometimes a client will make a deathbed confession that Edgar must be careful with, he said.
"If they tell me a crime, I've got to report it, you're obliged to report any crime. So, I ask them to write it down and post it to me. Or if they write it down, I put it in the envelope, and I post it to myself, and I don't open it until their funeral. So, I don't know what the crime is either.
"I do have some information on some crimes, the authorities would rather I let it out in the bag now before that person dies, but it's not what I do. I've got an obligation and a job to do. And I take it very seriously. And my integrity is everything, I hold their secrets dearly."
One client was determined to keep "the vultures in his family" at bay, Edgar said.
"He asked me where I could bury certain items that they'd never be found. That's a hard thing to think about where something could be buried, and he wanted his cash burnt.
"I looked into it, and it is illegal to burn cash, but it's not illegal to wrap it up tightly and place it in a box and bury it somewhere. And I decided the best place on the planet was to jump in his grave, dig a hole and put it there and then the coffin went on top. So, he took it with him."
His proximity to the dying gives him a certain perspective on how to live life, he said.
"I'm prepared now funnily enough. I'm prepared for death, not just mine, but the death of a loved one and real close person. I'm still going to grieve, of course. But I'm just prepared. I don't know why. But it just makes me live life better."
It has also taught him the value of making real human connections, he said. A client who was a professional influencer died with millions of social media followers.
"She's got a million Facebook followers, social media followers, she's out there, she's everywhere and she dies and less than a handful of people go to her funeral."
When her death was announced, there were thousands of likes and hearts and comments, he said.
"You can have all that and then have nothing really, it's all fake, false and fictitious."
So, after so much time spent with the dying, what's Edgar's advice for the living?
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. So, change, live life, enjoy. And don't be scared, don't let fear hold you back. Just do it."
