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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.

Owner Henry Shelton said it wasn't his fault.

Shelton said he repeatedly tried to contact Hyatt's grown daughter, Meriam Hyatt, for permission to transfer the body to the refrigerated facilities at the Cobb County Medical Examiner's Office.

But, Shelton said, she avoided him because she did not want to pay the $4,800 she owed him for the casket and the embalming and the memorial service.

He finally found her on May 15, 2008 at her work place, and she authorized him to move the body.

Later, Shelton learned that Hyatt was a military veteran and qualified for free burial at a state cemetery, and it was Shelton who obtained authorization from Meriam Hyatt's sister to arrange to have Hyatt buried there. Hyatt was buried on July 8, 2008, more than seven months after he died.

An administrative law judge in Atlanta, Kristin Miller, concluded that Shelton and his son "disregarded Reuben Hyatt's dignity by keeping his remains at the Funeral Home without refrigeration for more than five months after his death."

Miller also found that the Sheltons initally refused to release Hyatt's body to his family, and also refused to release the body of another man to that man's family; the judge found that the Sheltons were demanding payment for the funeral home's services before letting the families have the bodies, in violation of state law.

cooperschoffcpa400x75.gifThe State Board of Funeral Service imposed probation and a total of $2,500 in fines on the funeral home, and on the Sheltons personally.

Shelton told 11Alive News he does more funerals for the poor for free, an average of one a month, than any other funeral director in Cobb County.

He and his son are appealing the ruling and the sanctions..

Their attorney is former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes.

Hanley-Shelton Funeral Home has been in business since 1969 and has never been sanctioned by the state until now.

The State Board of Funeral Service entered its final order against the funeral home last month. The administrative law judge wrote her initial decision in February and the Board received it in March. The initial decision details both cases involving the bodies of Reuben Hyatt and Henry Lee Jackson.