Frierson was arrested in Columbia, Tennessee after she crashed a funeral. She had just side-swiped a series of parked vehicles with her red pickup truck. She then made her way to the funeral where she walked in and approached the open casket and grabbed the body and tried to lift the body out of the casket.
She allegedly resisted six people who pulled her away and took her out of the funeral home. Frierson insisted that she simply touched the deceased, a man who she knew. She says that people got upset when she insisted that the man was just asleep and and nothing more: “I told them that he was asleep and they was like, ‘Come on, come on out of here’ I said, ‘He is not dead. He is asleep,’ and that is it.”
She does not explain why she thought the man was sleeping — a considerable feat for even the soundest sleeper. At least one family member of the man who was being laid to rest backs up Frierson’s story.
At least one family member supported her account and said that she merely touched his hand and said the wacky things.
There of course still remains those cars and the fact that Frierson reportedly smelled of alcohol. She now faces charges of disrupting a funeral or memorial service, public intoxication, driving on revoked/suspended license, immediate notice of accident and unlawful drug paraphernalia.
There is also a misdemeanor alleged under Tennessee state law for disorderly conduct at funerals:
“A person commits the offense of interfering with a funeral or burial, funeral home viewing of a deceased person, funeral procession, or funeral or memorial service for a deceased person, if the person acts to obstruct or interfere with such commemorative service by making any utterance, gesture, or display in a manner offensive to the sensibilities of an ordinary person. Picketing, protesting, or demonstrating at a funeral or memorial service shall be deemed offensive to the sensibilities of an ordinary person.”
That is a rather ambiguous crime when one considers the range of possible utterances, gestures or displays that might be deemed offenses to the sensibilities of people.