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Their home is where the haunting is

A grave digger and his wife are delighted to bring chills and thrills to visitors each y ear.

By MARY ANN KOSLASKY
Published October 31, 2006

Gary Liucci digs his work. In fact, he really fell for it. Liucci, 45, works as a grave digger at Fero Memorial Gardens in Beverly Hills.

"I work with the dead for a living," said Liucci, who admits enjoying his work. "But they won't let me take my work home with me!"

That comment seems appropriate from a man who loves Halloween the way others love Christmas.

Recently, while he was pulling up the plywood protecting a completed grave, the sandy ground at the edge gave way.

"It sucked me in," said Liucci. "I literally had one foot in the grave.

"My first thought was, 'If I land wrong, they won't have to move me. Just cover me up and put a nice Halloween marker on the grave.' "

Fortunately, Liucci's supervisor, Sherri Genung, was nearby and hauled him to safety.

When Liucci was a child in Tuckahoe, N.Y., Halloween was his favorite holiday. Before he turned 10, he had rigged an old shopping cart ride he called Gary's Carts of Death. He rode friends around his darkened basement while other friends jumped out from the black recesses and scared the riders.

"With Halloween, anything goes," Liucci said. "You can slip out of reality and become anything you want, whereas with Christmas - you're you."

"It's the creativity," added Liucci's wife, Karey. She is still awaiting her annual Halloween scare.

One year it was a head in the refrigerator chewing a bun. Another time, it was a head in the toilet, in the middle of the night.

The couple celebrate their fifth anniversary today. They met at a Christmas party where he popped the question: "Do you like Halloween?"

She said yes.

For years, Liucci decorated his Citrus Hills yard with coffins, tombstones, witches and other ghoulies and ghosties that go bump in the night. Appropriately, they married there on Halloween night 2001.

That was the last display before the couple, joined by a little gray cat named Diesel, took to the road with Gary as a long-haul trucker. They traveled the 48 contiguous states making several stops at - where else? - Tombstone, Ariz.

Back in Citrus County, the Liuccis and Diesel have moved lock, stock and coffin from Citrus Hills to Inverness. With only about 30 percent of their original decorations this year, they set up a haunted graveyard in front of their new home.

The week of Halloween they dress up and become part of the decorations. Even Diesel, who sleeps on the coffin when it is stored in the house, will wear an orange and black collar.

Drivers stop to admire Liucci's handiwork. One recognizes it from Citrus Hills.

A neighborhood youngster steps up to the fence to take a closer look at the picture frame held by one of the ghouls. Liucci pushes a button on a control panel and a black-shrouded head with flashing red eyes pops out.

"Boo!"

And it's Halloween.

[Last modified October 30, 2006, 23:16:19]