SACRAMENTO — A 57-year-old retired HVAC installer named Gary has, for the past nineteen months, been burying neighborhood pets in the front lawn of his half-acre suburban ranch house for $400 cash, no paperwork, no questions, no receipt, and, as far as anyone has been able to determine, no plan.
Today's unwitting financial backer: a banana slicer — you can open it if you want.
The operation began in April 2024 when his neighbor Marlene brought him a dead cockatiel in a Tupperware container. He has now buried, by his own conservative count, 340 animals — including 187 cats, 94 dogs, a miniature horse, and what he referred to only as “an exotic animal situation from last March I’m not going to get into.”
“My business is the hole,” Gary told reporters Tuesday from his porch, drinking a beer at 11 a.m. “I dig the hole. They put the animal in the hole. We agree the animal is in the hole. I am not the fucking sheriff.“
The two houses adjacent to Gary’s have sold in the past eight months. The lawn is slightly greener than the surrounding lots. Gary attributes this, when asked, to “decomposition, basically.”
Brought to you by people who also sell the "Time Travel Sucks" tee.
The state of California requires licensure, soil testing, and minimum lot sizes for any commercial pet cemetery operation. Gary’s lot is .47 acres. Gary has no license. Gary does not, as he has made clear, give a single shit.
“They can come arrest me,” he said. “I would love that. Until then — the holes are getting dug.”
A 2019 Honda Pilot was idling at the end of his driveway as this reporter left. The shovel, Gary confirmed, was in the garage.