Illustration by EDWARD OYAMA/Daily Bruin
By Lisa Klassen
Daily Bruin Reporter
Southern California conjures a vision of eternal youth and
beauty, fame, fortune and creative energy. Despite this lively
image, a unique museum reminds us that death is still a very real
part of our lives.
Nestled in the heart of “Hollyweird,” on a seedy
side street near the infamous intersection of Hollywood Boulevard
and Vine Avenue, the Museum of Death gives local and more
traditional attractions a run for their money with its unusual
collection of objects, art and photos related to death.
“We have everything about death here ““ old tools
used in funeral homes, embalming tables, and even a guillotine and
an electric chair,” said Cathee Shultz, one of the
museum’s two founders. “There’s nothing else like
this in the area.”
The museum’s attractions, which range from the bunk beds
used by the Heaven’s Gate cult and the deranged artwork of
serial killers like Charles Manson, draw people from as far away as
Texas as well as local Angelenos.
 Photos by CHRIS BACKLEY/Daily Bruin The Museum of Death,
located in the heart of Hollywood, features everything from
embalming tables to autopsy photos to electric chairs.
Faint-of-heart? Beware! On Saturday, a large group of students from
East Los Angeles College visited the museum. They entered the
building smiling and chattering, only to fall silent after viewing
the first exhibit, which features autopsy photographs and embalming
tools.
“Be aware that it’s extremely graphic,” said
JD Healy, Shultz’s partner and the other founder of the
museum, to a pair of curious visitors entering the first
exhibit.
The nature of Healy’s warning becomes apparent in the
first room’s grisly collection of autopsy photos, which
includes an autographed photo of a local coroner at work. Other
photos are equally graphic, depicting famous murders, war crimes,
accidents and suicides.
While some visitors can handle the museum’s displays,
others are not as fortunate.
“We’ve had 16 people pass out this year,”
Shultz said. “They occurred mostly during the cannibalism
exhibit. There wasn’t anything extremely graphic up there
““ just written accounts from actual cannibals. I guess
people’s imaginations were more gruesome than
reality.”
The cannibalism exhibit, called “Nice to Eat You,”
was the latest of several special exhibitions. Past features have
included “Execution: Tools and Techniques,” and
“Fanning the Flames of Death,” which chronicled
advertising strategies used by funeral homes.
According to Shultz, the museum also held a “Black Dahlia
Birthday Bash” during the summer. The event coincided with
the birthday of Elizabeth Short, an aspiring actress with the
nickname “Black Dahlia” who was murdered in Hollywood
in 1947. The case, never solved, has become a part of Hollywood
legend.
 Ignacio Martinez (back) and
Cristian Pesantes look through the glass at a
replica of the mass suicide of the Heaven’s Gate cult that
occurred in San Diego County.
“We even had a Black Dahlia Beauty Pageant where we had
people dressing up and even re-enacting the crime scene,”
Shultz said. “It was really fun and we got a lot of people
involved.”
Also included in the museum’s archives are stories of
celebrity deaths, which detail botched suicide attempts, murders
and accidents that claimed the lives of notable personalities and
have taken an important place in popular culture and local
history.
The next special event, titled “Love You to Death,”
will focus on the strange and taboo world of necrophilia.
Shultz and Healy, though interested in the sensational aspects
of death, also include exhibits from the more mundane world of
funeral homes, caskets and morticians. Body bags and death
certificates are also on display, a gift from the local
coroner’s office.
“We get some donations and we also buy a lot of our
items,” Shultz said. “We find lots of things in antique
stores too.”
Some, however, criticize the museum for its frankness and for
Healy and Shultz’s strange collecting habits.
“This is a little bit too morbid for me,” said Zoe
Robin, a second-year world arts and cultures student. “I mean
I have some fascination about death, but some of that stuff is too
graphic for me.”
While the museum can be graphic, Healy and Shultz said that they
only want to provide an educational experience for their
visitors.
“People today forget that death is real. It’s become
remote and mysterious, and we just want to show people what
it’s like,” Healy said.
Although the Museum of Death was welcomed to Hollywood, it was
not as warmly accepted in San Diego, its original location. Many
residents were offended by the exhibits and felt that the museum
did not belong in the area, according to the owners.
“The museum came to life in 1995,” Healy said.
“It used to be the Rita Dean Art Gallery where Cathee and I
had a lot of really controversial shows. In the late ’80s,
after a show of serial killers’ artwork and another of exotic
weapons, we came up with the idea of the museum.”
The museum officially opened in June of 1995 in the basement of
a building in the historic Gaslight District of San Diego.
Fittingly, the building housed the first mortuary in the area.
The viewing area of the museum was designed to resemble the
interior of a casket, with satin covered walls and Berber
carpet.
In its early years the museum hosted the largest collection of
serial killer artwork and an extensive exhibit dedicated to
execution, in all of its various forms. In 1997, the museum
acquired a series of car-crash fatality photos taken by the notable
photographer Mell Kilpatrick. Soon, the museum’s holdings had
doubled in size.
While a popular attraction, the museum was largely ignored by
local, more tourist-friendly destinations.
“People in San Diego just kind of ignored our
existence,” Healy said. “More people down there are
really conservative, and what we were doing really shocked
them.”
Despite its eventual popularity and success in San Diego, the
Museum of Death was forced to relocate when the owner of the
building challenged the legality of Healy and Shultz’s
lease.
By November of 1999, they found a new home for the museum in
Hollywood. It officially opened its doors on Feb. 14, 2000, the
anniversary of the notorious St. Valentine’s Day
Massacre.
“We didn’t want to move at first,” Shultz
said, “But we really like it here. There’s a lot of
creative energy in L.A., and people are not as conservative.
It’s a lot more exciting, too.”
According to Shultz, the museum has received more visitors since
its move. These visitors include many out-of-state vacationers,
locals and even the occasional celebrity.
“Just a while ago, Vincent Gallo, the director of the
movie “˜Buffalo 66′ visited the museum,” Shultz
said. Other notable guests include Marilyn Manson, Iggy Pop, Tommy
Lee and Rob Zombie.
Despite the museum’s occult lure, Shultz and Healy said
they rarely encounter frightening visitors.
“It’s always hard to tell who’s a
killer,” Shultz said. “There are some people that look
weird but turn out to be very friendly when you talk to them.
Besides, people like Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez were considered
normal and were actually very friendly. But we like to think that
the serial killers are busy doing their thing and not visiting the
museum.”
For more information on visiting the Museum of Death, call (323)
466-8011. The museum is open from noon to 10 p.m. Sunday through
Thursday and from noon to midnight Friday and Saturday. Admission
is $6 for students and seniors and $7 for all other visitors. It is
located at 6340 Hollywood Blvd.