Funeral home under investigation

[Aymerlu 3]

I was on vacation for a while and was told about this when I got back. This is where I live.......sick, sick, sick! Can you imagine how the family members and friends of some of these deceased are feeling?

Story straight out of The Columbia Daily Tribune in Columbia Missouri and our local NBC affilitate KOMU 8. This is sickening.

Mortuary doors shut for 15 days

Warrens face another hearing August 12.

By T.J. GREANEY of the Tribune's staff Published Thursday, July 31, 2008

Correction appended

The owners of Warren Funeral Chapel have agreed to close the business for 15 days pending a hearing in a lawsuit filed by the state alleging that they mishandled bodies and maintained unsanitary conditions.

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<td>Holste </td>

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The agreement took effect at 5 p.m. yesterday after Dan Viets, the attorney for Harold Warren Sr. and Harold Warren Jr., returned with signatures from the two defendants and Judge Kevin Crane signed off on a temporary restraining order.

A hearing on Attorney General Jay Nixon's request for a preliminary injunction is set for Aug. 12. Nixon's office said yesterday it plans to ask Crane to order the funeral chapel to shut down until the Warrens prove they comply with state regulations.

"They're going to have to satisfy the same state inspectors that came out there earlier this month and found these problems," Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said. "Obviously there are a whole host of problems at this particular facility, and we want to ensure that state inspectors are satisfied."

Nixon's civil suit, filed last week, is the result of three inspections between July 11 and July 16. Investigators from the state Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers determined the Warrens held bodies for longer than 24 hours without refrigeration and that Warren Sr. handled bodies with his bare hands, reused caskets and stored organs from multiple bodies in a trash bag. Two bodies were found in the basement nearly a year after they had died, according to the suit, which alleges a total of seven bodies were mishandled.

The Warrens did not appear in court yesterday. Viets, an ACLU attorney who has known Harold Sr. for more than 35 years, said he has advised the Warrens not to comment.

Amid the furor, though, others are stepping up to vouch for the Warrens.

Dori Burke, chief forensic investigator for the Boone County Medical Examiner's Office, said Warren regularly picks up bodies from death scenes and delivers them to her office. She said the state needs to do everything it can to keep the doors open.

"Unless the state wants 10 or 12 bodies on their doorstep every month, they need to work with them," said Burke, "because you've still got divisions between blacks and whites in this community, and there are a lot of old-fashioned people out there who aren't going to use anyone but the Warrens." Warren Funeral Chapel dates back to 1969 and is one of two black-owned funeral chapel in Mid-Missouri. H.T. May and Son has operated in Boonville since 1911.

Burke, who stressed that she speaks only for herself and not for her office, said she personally offered to pitch in on her free time and "do whatever it takes to help them comply."

Burke said she was called July 11 by the state inspectors to pick up the body of a woman she identified as Julia Haney of Columbia from the Warren basement. Haney died Sept. 25, 2007, from complications of hepatitis and since that time had been stored in an electrical room, unembalmed and unrefrigerated. The body was in an advanced state of decay. Burke said it was the first time she had been in the basement, and conditions were unsanitary but not nearly as bad as it has sounded in the lawsuit.

"It wasn't some horrible, bug-infested place," she said. "It wasn't a scene out of a horror movie."

Burke said Warren Sr. got a faxed letter from Haney's brother at the time of her death, saying he would not pay for her cremation. She said the Warrens did not know what to do with the body and had never heard of the Boone County cremation program, which cremates the remains of indigent people at no charge.

"I said, 'Harold, why didn't you just call me?' " said Burke, referring to Warren Jr. "We could have taken care of this for you."

The funeral home or the Warrens have been the target of numerous lawsuits filed recently by creditors including Regions Bank, Capital One Bank, Batesville Casket Co., MFA Oil and Fountain Mortuary Service, according to records on file at the Boone County Courthouse.

Burke said that someone from the state board informed her last night that she should be prepared to pick up another body from Warren Funeral Chapel. Burke was never called back, however. Representatives at the state board declined to confirm or deny the call.

This morning two representatives from the state board said they could not answer specific questions about the history of inspections at Warren but said the facility was inspected when it opened several years ago and has had annual inspections ever since. They said funeral chapels are not required to have refrigeration units.

Kim Grinston, legal counsel for the state division of professional registration, said the legality of withholding remains from families who have not paid for a funeral, as the Warrens are alleged to have done, is a legal gray area. She added, "We do not support or encourage a funeral director holding ashes ransom, as it were."

The six members of the state board will meet in Jefferson City beginning Aug. 18 and can decide whether to expand the Warren investigation to families from years past. Numerous families who did pay the Warrens in full have reported they never received the cremated remains of loved ones.

Among them is Brian Williams, 36, of St. Joseph. His great-uncle Lewis Lawson died in 2004 and his great-grandmother Christine Logan died in January of this year. To date his family hasn't received the remains of either.

"We haven't heard anything. They don't return calls. We paid and we've just been waiting and waiting," Williams said. "Warren was eager to take our money, but wasn't eager at all to help us get Uncle Lewis' ashes." Williams said his family has called every crematorium in the area and none has a record of either family member.

More bodies found at Warren

Remains of six were disclosed yesterday.

By T.J. GREANEY of the Tribune's staff Published Saturday, August 2, 2008

Columbia police yesterday removed six bodies from the property of Warren Funeral Chapel in downtown Columbia. It is believed many of these bodies were the embalmed remains of people who died months ago. Neither police nor inspectors from the state Board of Embalmers & Funeral Directors released the names of the dead.

"We've been working with the families of those whose remains were identified from the inspection in July, and we're going to continue to work with the board to ensure that families are protected in this situation," said Scott Holste, a spokesman for Attorney General Jay Nixon.

Police in a news release initially said they removed five bodies from the funeral home at 12 E. Ash St. before later correcting that statement. Capt. Brad Nelson said family members will be notified once identities of the remains are confirmed.

Between July 11 and July 16, investigators from the embalmers and funeral directors board made three inspections at the funeral chapel. Inspectors removed seven bodies during those inspections, including two that had lain in the chapel basement nearly a year.

According to a civil suit filed against the Warrens in Boone County Circuit Court by Nixon's office, investigators also discovered numerous other violations of state health laws. The funeral home on Wednesday closed its businesses in Columbia and Fulton for 15 days pending another court hearing.

At about noon yesterday, the Warrens' attorney, Dan Viets, called state investigators and told them of the additional bodies.

Viets later told the Tribune he was acting at the urging of the Warrens.

"My understanding is they were basically overlooked by inspectors," Viets said, referring to the July inspections. "I will say I suspect that at least some of these were people whose families had never paid to have them cremated. In some cases, I believe the Warrens are very sympathetic, and when people come in and say a family member died and people ask, 'Will you help us out?' - unless it's cash upfront - this is what happens."

But Kim Grinston, legal counsel for the state Division of Professional Registration, which has oversight of embalmers and funeral directors, said all funeral home inspections are thorough and extensive.

"We have a licensed funeral director and embalmer and another licensed funeral director who did the inspection, and they are very familiar with the funeral establishment and where things would be placed," Grinston said. "The inspections are very thorough and very complete."

A source familiar with details of the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bodies found yesterday had been embalmed and, in some instances, might have been in visitation services convened by their families. The source said the Warrens gave some of those families cremains purported to be of the deceased. The source also said the bodies were not found during the initial investigations because they were stored at the Warrens' funeral chapel in Fulton and later moved to the Columbia facility.

Also yesterday, the family of Charles Duckworth, a Fulton man who died Jan. 9 at age 44, announced they had obtained his cremated remains this week. Duckworth's family held visitation services for him at the Warrens' chapel in Columbia.

The Duckworth relatives say they paid in full for his cremation. After months of pleading with the Warrens for his remains, family members this week called Central Missouri Vault Co. of New Bloomfield. Family members said vault company owner Dale LaRue told them Harold Warren Jr. brought Duckworth's body in for cremation on July 21 and returned for the ashes on July 23.

Those dates were after the embalmers and funeral directors' inspections. It leaves family members wondering where the body of their loved one was after his death. Duckworth's sister, Marcella Narancich of Fulton, said she picked up the remains at the Warren chapel in Columbia on Tuesday.

"I went up there to get them, and he had a sheet of paper for me to sign stating that I did pick up his body. He didn't say anything else to me, absolutely nothing else," Narancich said. "I'm not even for sure it was" the remains of Duckworth.

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-55164

Edited August 7, 2008 by Aymerlu

[Nagishkaw 510]

Sick is an understatement. This is just wrong!

[Ban Hammer 13,336]

[Aymerlu 3]

On the news today the NAACP is getting involved because they are saying they are being investigated because the owners of the funeral homes are black. Hello.....it's against ethics! Race has nothing to do with it. Rumor has it they will be checking out a lot of sites and digging people up to make sure who they say is in the casket, really is who they say it is. They even gave out the cremated remains of others people to family members! I just cannot imagine.

[Shawna Mahmoud 0]

That is truly a disgrace. I do agree race has nothing to do with it. Its disrespectful to the families and they should be shut down. As an African American, I find it repulsive to know that the NAACP would step in on a matter such as this when it is clearly a case of this funeral home mishandling their affairs. There are lots of injustices in this world that the NAACP could be fighting. This is definitely not one of them. My heart goes out the families of these poor people who have had to deal with this establishment.

[Ban Hammer 13,336]

al sharpton is on the way i bet.

[Aymsgirl 0]

I can't imagine dead bodies just laying around in a funeral home with no refrigeration. This is really strange and makes you wonder what else goes on in places like this. Makes me ill....

[Aymerlu 3]

That is truly a disgrace. I do agree race has nothing to do with it. Its disrespectful to the families and they should be shut down. As an African American, I find it repulsive to know that the NAACP would step in on a matter such as this when it is clearly a case of this funeral home mishandling their affairs. There are lots of injustices in this world that the NAACP could be fighting. This is definitely not one of them. My heart goes out the families of these poor people who have had to deal with this establishment.

I agree with you 100%

[DairyFarmer 1]

I was already feeling a little off colour today, now I'm feeling totally nauseous.

[Aymerlu 3]

It freaks me out. I drive by this place at least 4 times a week! I've totally changed my route.

[Mags 112]

Surely the smell would have been a give away? A dead, unrefrigerated, unembalmed body will be very smelly. So smelly, in fact, that the smell will seep into the rest of the building. Even embalmed bodies smell - embalming doesn't stop decay entirely. And that's not even bringing up the point that the body will have broken down and suffered from liquefaction.

I just can't understand why no one noticed!

Edited August 8, 2008 by Magenta

[eric&gen 0]

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Truly odd. The funeral home neglected their duties and their responsibility to these families for a long time. It's obviously not a race thing so the NAACP getting involved is unnecessary.

[FaithfulandTrue 6]

omg and might i add, ewwwwweeeeeeeee

[Yaads 0]

Wow that is really gross. I can't imagine why someone would want to do that I feel for all those families that thought they buried their loved one when in fact that might not be the case.