Associated Press
Associated Press
NEW YORK — For years, curiosity seekers visiting the Fort Worth, Texas, grave of Lee Harvey Oswald have wondered about the simple headstone next door, marked Nick Beef.
It turns out Nick Beef is alive and living in New York.
The New York Times reports that the 56-year-old man who uses that name purchased the cemetery plot next to Oswald’s in 1975 and had the granite marker placed there in 1997.
Beef, born Patric Abedin, now lives in Manhattan and calls himself a nonperforming performance artist.
When he was 18, Beef read that the burial plot next to Oswald’s was available. He bought it for $17.50 down and 16 monthly payments of $10.
Beef moved to New York, married, had two children and divorced. He did some freelance comedy writing using the name Nick Beef, a moniker he came up with while joking around with a friend.
During a trip to Texas, he visited his burial plot and decided to buy a gravestone with the exact dimensions as Oswald’s.
He told the cemetery official to inscribe it Nick Beef.
He has no plans to ever be buried there. He said he would prefer to be cremated.