One week after Detroit officials found 11 infant remains hidden in a recently closed funeral home’s ceiling, the remains of 63 fetuses were discovered at another funeral home Friday.
Detroit police said Friday that the fetuses were found at the Perry Funeral Home, reports Fox2. About 37 of them were found in cardboard boxes and another 26 were discovered in a freezer. The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) closed the funeral home after the discovery and its license was suspended.
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The state oversight agency said in a release that investigators found “heinous conditions and negligent conduct” at the funeral home. They found that some of the infants had died in 2015, and staffers failed to file death certificates for the dead bodies. The funeral home also failed to get the necessary permits and kept the bodies without being directed by family members.
Joshua I. Arnkoff, a lawyer for the funeral home, said in an emailed statement to the New York Times that staff did not commit any crimes and the fetuses were never claimed by parents. The funeral home kept the fetuses because it did not have the legal authority to bury or create the remains, the statement claimed.
The Times reports that the discovery at the Perry Funeral Home came after a woman filed a lawsuit in July. The woman said her daughter, Alayah Laniece Davis, died after she was born in December 2014. The mother wanted the body to go to Wayne State University Medical School for research, but it instead went to the Perry Funeral Home, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also named the university and the hospital where the baby was born as defendants. The lawsuit claimed the mother was given a certificate of death that said the remains were buried, but they were at the funeral home instead.
“We’ve got multiple layers of potentially criminal activity by Perry Funeral Home, lack of supervision on the part of the mortuary science program and gross negligence on the part of the hospital,” the mother’s attorney, Peter J. Parks, told the Times.
The discovery at Perry Funeral Home came a week after officials announced that the remains of 11 infants were found hidden at the Cantrell Funeral Home, which was closed in April. Detroit Police Chief James Craig said Friday it does not appear that the two cases are connected, but officials might start a task force to investigate what happens to remains sent to funeral homes in the area.
“There’s a lot that has happened in the last 24 hours,” Craig said, reports the Times. “But it’s raising more questions for me now.”
LARA is still investigating Perry Funeral Home.
Michigan law states that if human remains are not disposed of within 180 days after the funeral director takes possession of the remains, the person can be imprisoned for up to 10 years in prison, face a fine of up to $50,000 or both.
