Death is never a laughing matter. But in the case of Ken Lay, the notorious fraudster and white-collar thief who oversaw the shocking collapse of the Enron empire, America is prepared to make an exception.
Just a day after Lay died of a heart attack while awaiting sentence for his part in the disgraceful affair that robbed thousands of people of their jobs and life savings, the New York Post was keen to make its feelings known.
Alongside pictures of the former Enron chief and a wooden casket, on the newspaper's front page, ran the words: 'Before they put cheato Lay's coffin in the grave, check he's in it!' Given the maelstrom of conspiracy theories swirling on the Web last week that Lay's death was faked, the headline was only partly tongue-in-cheek.
For many of Enron's victims, Lay's death, at 64, is the ultimate final justice. Denied the chance of ever seeing a return on their investments of time or money that created the corporate behemoth, the stockholders, employees and pensioners who lost everything in its subsequent bankruptcy at least have the satisfaction of knowing that the crook at the top of the woodpile would gain nothing.
Others feel they have been robbed of that justice they so desperately sought. Along with their empty pockets is the hollow knowledge that the man who turned their lives upside down escaped spending his twilight years locked up in a cell.
'It's kind of mixed emotions for many people,' said Richard Mason, a professor specialising in business ethics at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business, Dallas, Texas, and an expert on the Enron bankruptcy.