Are you worried about receiving ashes (as in wood ashes) instead of your loved one’s cremains? Or, are you fighting for a body to be released from a funeral home? You wouldn’t be alone in both cases, as funeral homes in this country throughout July played some morbid and damaging games with clients. In other cases, some funeral directors and homes were sentenced to pay for damages this month for their parts in previous schemes.
- The Unrefridgerated Corpse: The Hanley-Shelton Funeral Home in Marietta, Georgia was sanctioned by a state board for leaving a corpse unrefrigerated for five months. Although the funeral home had reason for revenge, as the client did not pay, their actions were illegal. Henry Shelton’s license was suspended for a month, he was placed on three years’ probation and will pay a $1,000 fine.
- Seashells in the Urn: Marisol Villarreal discovered that her mother’s body had never been cremated and was instead left to decompose in a Gary, Indiana funeral home. Former funeral director Darryl Cammack of Chicago has been under investigation since May, when four extremely decayed bodies – including Rosa Villarreal’s – were found inside what had last been his Serenity Gardens Funeral Home. The Villarreal family filed a lawsuit against Cammack in Lake County, Ind., seeking damages for breach of contract, fraud, theft of services, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence.
- Dirty Habits: Unsanitary conditions and improper body storage has led to stripping a funeral home of its directors’ and embalmers’ licenses. The Warren Funeral Chapels in Columbia and Fulton, Missouri, have been shut down since July 2008, and the charges have been settled this month.
- The Case of the Shortened Legs: This month, a South Carolina judge revoked the license of Cave Funeral Home and owner Michael Cave for cutting the legs of a corpse because the body would not fit in the casket. The body was that of James Hines, a soul and funk guitarist who planed with J. Hines and the Boys in the 1970s.
- Milking the Prearranged Funeral Plan: Douglas Darling’s mortician’s license was suspended for 15 days and he was ordered to pay a $500 fine. Darling was also ordered to pay $1,150 in investigative costs and attorneys fees, according to a stipulation and consent order. His crime? Soliciting older women for prearrangement services through Lakeview Funeral Home when he already sold them plans when he worked at Coffelt Funeral Service. Additionally, Idaho law prohibits licensed morticians from making uninvited solicitations.
- Embezzling Ex: An arrest warrant was issued this month for former funeral home director John W. Hodge, who stole nearly $200,000, possibly from a prepaid funeral fund at Hodge Funeral Homes in Elgin and Fletcher, Oklahoma. The state Funeral Board stripped him of his funeral director and embalmer license and revoked the establishment licenses of both facilities after he acknowledged he failed to properly file annual accounting in 2004 and 2005.









