It was a dramatic farewell for Sydney human rights lawyer Seth Richardson that his family says would have appealed to his wicked sense of humour.
As his family prepared for the funeral of the 52-year-old, also a regular contributor to letters to the editor in the Herald, in the Blue Mountains on Thursday a man jumped in the hearse and stole it – with Mr Richardson still in a coffin in the back.
"One of the funeral guys who works for the funeral home went out to the hearse to grab the trolley to put it under the coffin and in a split second this guy jumped out of the bushes, jumped straight into the hearse and started it up," Mr Richardson's sister-in-law Hayley West said.
"The funeral guy was banging on the window going 'what the hell are you doing? You can't drive away in the hearse'.
"Then he ran into the hall and yelled 'someone has taken the hearse, with Seth!'"
Mr Richardson's brother, Tobias Richardson, was in the foyer of the Wentworth Falls School of Arts preparing for the service as the drama unfolded. He called police telling them "someone had stolen a car with my dead brother in the back".
"And the police thought it was a murder," Ms West said. "And there was this weird confusion, and he was like 'no, he's already dead, it's a hearse'."
Tobias Richardson took matters into his own hands, jumping into his car and giving chase. Fortunately the hearse had turned into a cul-de-sac and Tobias Richardson blocked the only way out with his own car.
The police arrived moments later and detained the driver.
"We were just thinking imagine if he'd turned left down the Great Western Highway," Ms West said.
"He could have crashed it, he could still be driving. At one stage we were imaging an OJ Simpson-style chase with helicopters.
"The funeral director didn't know what to say to us, he was saying 'this had never happened before, and all I can say is that the coffin is glued down, so if anything happens Seth will be okay."
The whole incident unfolded over 20 minutes and Mr Richardson's funeral still proceeded on time at noon.
"Seth would have thought this was so funny, he had a wicked sense of humour," Ms West said.
Police said the man who had taken the hearse was a 49-year-old man with dementia who had gone missing from a nursing home at Leura at 7am on Thursday.
Staff had searched the nearby shops and the train station before contacting police who attended the home before being called out to investigate the stolen hearse.
The 49-year-old was taken to hospital and no further police action is expected to be taken.
