Key Takeaways

Shultz and Healy opened the first Museum of Death in San Diego in June 1995.

The couple’s collection includes items from Heaven’s Gate and Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

They hope museum visitors leave with a greater appreciation for life.

Forty-four years ago, Cathee Shultz and JD Healy met while working at a cafe in Arizona. She was the “cappuccino girl,” and he was the baker. Even though they had opposite shifts, the two artists caught each other’s eyes. They got married two weeks later.

Before long, Shultz and Healy channeled their creativity into the Rita Dean art gallery (a combination of their middle names), based in San Diego, California. The couple’s gallery featured “against the grain” work across death, sex, politics and more, some of which stemmed from a macabre hobby.

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Museum of Death. Cathee Shultz and JD Healy.

“ I started writing to serial killers and visiting them on death row,” Healy says. “I accumulated this large collection of serial killer artwork.…