Archive of Funeral Industry Scandals

July 2009 - The Illinois Cemetery and Funeral Home Association (ICFHA) strongly condemns the crimes committed at Burr Oak Cemetery. "What these employees did violates everything we stand for, and offends a code of conduct that has governed our industry for centuries," said Vickie Hand, Treasurer of the ICFHA. "What happened is not only abhorrent and appalling, but it is clearly criminal. It violates laws and regulations that we have helped to craft over decades, and that we have worked hard to enforce."

"Everyone wants to know how this could have happened," said Harvey Lapin, General Counsel for the ICFHA. "There is no easy answer, except that, sadly, criminals break laws. These employees appear to have broken many laws - laws that our association helped put in place precisely because we understand the pain and horror that these actions cause.

Read more: Illinois Cemetery and Funeral Home Association Condemns Burr Oak Crimes

Four people face felony charges after authorities discovered that hundreds of graves were dug up and allegedly resold at a historic African-American cemetery near Chicago, Illinois, authorities said Thursday. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said the four would resell the plots in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, excavate the graves, dump the remains and pocket the cash. "This was not done in a very, very delicate way, folks," he told reporters at a news conference Thursday.

Read more: 4 Charged With Digging up Graves, Reselling Plots

A funeral home in Marietta, GA has been placed under state sanctions, in part because it kept the body of a man unrefrigerated for more than five months. But the funeral director told 11Alive News he could not get authorization to move the body sooner, because the man's family disappeared after running up a big funeral bill. The Hanley-Shelton Funeral Home in Marietta kept the body of Reuben Hyatt inside the funeral home embalmed but unrefrigerated from early December, 2007, until mid May, 2008.

Read more: Funeral Home Fined, Kept Body for Five Months Unrefrigerated

July 3, 2009 - A Falls Church funeral home that allegedly mishandled numerous bodies over the past year has denied wrongdoing. Its attorneys wrote to a Virginia regulatory board that the company has not violated any laws or industry standards and that it treats all remains with "the utmost dignity and respect." Attorneys for National Funeral Home, which serves as a regional embalming and storage facility for Houston-based Service Corporation International, wrote that allegations of impropriety were unfounded. They said an internal investigation has turned up "credible, independent evidence that refutes the principal allegations" that surfaced when current and former employees and customers complained publicly this year.

Read more: Funeral Home Denies Mishandling Bodies

Merrill Lynch & Co. has agreed to pay $18 million to end a State of Illinois investigation into its role in the erosion of a trust that was supposed to safeguard consumer deposits meant to pay for their funerals. The settlement, announced Wednesday by the Illinois Division of Insurance, will benefit more than 600 funeral homes that sold prepaid funeral plans to consumers and deposited the money in a trust created in 1980 by the Springfield-based Illinois Funeral Directors Association.

Read more: Merrill Lynch OKs $18 Mil Funeral Trust Deal, But Admits No Wrongdoing

April 27, 2009 - Losses in a pre-need funeral trust fund once administered by the Illinois Funeral Directors Association don?t look like much compared to the collapse of a pre-need funeral empire based in Missouri and Texas. Founded by a disbarred lawyer who went to prison in the 1980s after being convicted of fraud, National Prearranged Services in St. Louis once did business across the nation, pitching to funeral home directors and consumers.

Read more: Illinois' Losses Little Compared to Service's $1 Billion Shortfall

April 16, 2009 - The family of an Army veteran has sued a Virginia funeral home, claiming the firm mishandled the man's body by leaving it in an unrefrigerated garage for more than two months as it awaited burial at Arlington National Cemetery. The lawsuits filed against National Funeral Home and its parent company, Houston-based Service Corp. International, seek $60 million in damages.

Read more: Family of Veteran Sues Va. Funeral Home For $60M, Claims Neglect of Body Awaiting Burial

April 8, 2009 - The family of a deceased U.S. Army veteran whose body was stored for months in a Falls Church funeral home's unrefrigerated garage is asking Fairfax County prosecutors to investigate the case as a crime. Richard Morgan Jr., a Harrisonburg, Va., criminal defense attorney, hand-delivered a letter to Commonwealth's Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh's office yesterday arguing that the actions of National Funeral Home and its parent company, Houston-based Service Corporation International, amount to felonies. Morgan said his father's body was "defiled" because it was left to rot on a garage rack, a possible felony under a Virginia law regulating the treatment of corpses.

Read more: Family Asks Fairfax Prosecutor To Investigate SCI Funeral Home

March 24, 2009 - Death is hard enough to deal with without the added insult of being taken advantage of by a funeral home. The Federal Trade Commission recently sent undercover inspectors into 104 funeral homes in seven states and just released a report that found that one in four (26) had significant violations of government regulations intended to protect consumers. The two locations with the most violations were Northeastern Arkansas, where 73% had serious violations, and San Antonio, where 64% flunked, the FTC reported. All the inspections were conducted in 2008. Minneapolis/St. Paul and Toledo, Ohio, funeral homes fared the best. Each had only one funeral home found to have serious violations.

Read more: One in Four Funeral Homes Not Playing By The Rules

March 19, 2009 - The troubles for Illinois funeral homes continue to mount, as its trade group is involved in an insurance-coverage dispute related to problems with a trust it oversaw. Federal Insurance Co., based in Warren, N.J., seeks to deny coverage to the Illinois Funeral Directors Association for claims the organization filed after it was sued by consumers and its members in separate complaints. The insurer, a subsidiary of Chubb Corp., filed suit on Monday in Chicago federal court, claiming that that the association did not file its claims on time.

Read more: Insurer Sues Illinois Funeral Directors to Deny Their Claims