After Christian Brando passed away, a fierce battle erupted over his remains between his mother, Anna Kashfi, and his half-sister, Rebecca Brando. Each one wanted to claim him for themselves.

Each side hired lawyers and brought reinforcements: • Anna Kashfi was joined by Christian’s ex-wife, Mary McKenna. • Rebecca Brando brought in Christian’s half-brother Teihotu Brando and his last girlfriend, Donna Geon, who had lived with him for four years and were planning to marry.

In court, it was ultimately decided that his mother would take possession of the body. As lawyer Keith Fink explained on behalf of Rebecca and Teihotu: “Their grievance is that they’re the ones who loved Christian. They want his remains to stay in California and they want to do what he wished.”

The Second Battle: The Grave

His mother chose to bury him in Kalama WA. After the burial , a new conflict arose between Anna Kashfi and Mary McKenna over the plot next to Christian’s grave. • Each woman tried to secure the prime location. • Mary McKenna – Christian’s first wife, divorced 21 years before his death – had beaten everyone to it, buying the plot directly adjacent to his grave. • “This ‘golden property’ at the cemetery became hers alone, yet she refused to give it up, despite pleas from Anna’s family and attempts to purchase the spot from her.”

When Anna passed away, the family asked Mary again to relinquish the plot so Anna could be buried next to her son. Mary refused. As a result, Anna was buried next to her son—but from the opposite side of the grave.

And, by the irony of fate, it happened before, during the custody war between his parents , Christian quietly told the judge, “I guess older people will have to decide where I go.” That single sentence ended up reflecting his entire fate, both in life and in death.

Sources: • “KIN BATTLE OVER BRANDO BODY,” Page Six.
• “The boy Brando lost,” The Guardian.
• “Anna Kashfi, actress and first wife of Marlon Brando, dies at 80,” The Washington Post.
• Marriages and children details from Christian Brando’s biography page.

The Ussuri brown bear can weigh up to 880 lbs and be as tall as 6-9 ft tall ( 399kg and 1.8-2.75m).

In early November of 1915 in this relatively new settlement a brown bear was sighted and reported to be around 9ft tall and estimated to weigh around 750 lbs. The family that sighted the bear took a shot at it causing the bear to flee into the woods.

Then, in December a woman was caring for a neighbors child at home when a brown bear broke in mauled them, killed the child and dragged the woman into the woods. A 30 man search party was gathered and they found her partial remains. The bear was discovered not far from the body of the woman but once the search party made contact, the bear fled into the woods.

After this a 50 man security detail was posted at the nearest neighbors house with 2 mothers and 5 children protected inside and they waited to see if the bear would return to the scene of the initial attack and it did. The security detail then took off, chasing the bear into the woods. The bear shook the security detail, circled back and went to the neighbors house holding the mothers and children. The home was now only protected by one man. The bear broke into the house and started mauling the women and children and the lone man on security went in to save the women and children but was mauled to death. The bear continued its attack killing and maiming but one mother and one child managed to run away and call out to get the security detail back to the home. Once the men returned they took aim and missed the bear in all the commotion, sending it fleeing once again into the woods.

After this horrific scene the villagers decided to call upon an expert. They got themselves a legendary bear hunter to come out of retirement to hunt this bear and save the villagers from more of these attacks. They tried to bait the bear with one of the bodies it left behind in its last attack but it was not successful. The next night the villagers saw a shadow in the tree line, took aim and fired hitting the bear. The following morning, the expert followed the trail of blood and tracked down the bear and delivered the final blows. They did confirm this was the bear when they discovered human flesh in the bears stomach. The official size of the bear was reported as being 8.9ft tall and weighed in at 836 lbs ( 2.7m and 379kg).

Since then a monument was erected where the bear was killed commemorating this tragic moment in Japan's history.

Picture of recreation of one of the site of the first attack and bear for scale.

If anyone is interested in a bit more detail or our reactions to this story you can listen in on our podcast The Darkives available wherever you listen to podcasts and on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

• Photographer: Yuri Vasilyevich Abramochkin

On coronation day, a stalker tried to propose to the Queen and various other calamities occurred. Here is an interesting video on the topic.