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It was quite a send-off for Jim Davis, or so the people paying his funeral bills were led to believe.

They were told Davis was laid to rest at Abbey Memorial Park in Compton after being placed in an ornate, top-of-the-line casket lined with elaborate floral arrangements. Altogether, the bill to bury Davis at the palm-lined cemetery came to nearly $31,000.

But there was a problem: There was no Jim Davis. He was dreamed up by a group of scam artists, authorities say.

And prosecutors say the coffin that was lowered into the ground was made out of cheap plywood or cardboard, filled with either rocks or butchered meat and animal bones, apparently to …