Police 'stunned' after discovering 63 fetuses in funeral home
A funeral home has been shut down after police discovered the remains of 63 fetuses inside.
Detroit police Chief James Craig said officers found 36 fetuses in boxes and 27 others in freezers during Friday’s raid at the Perry Funeral Home.
He said he was “stunned” by the discovery, which came a week after the remains of 10 fetuses and one infant were discovered in a ceiling at Detroit’s defunct Cantrell Funeral Home. Those remains were found after state regulators in Lansing received an anonymous letter.
The fetuses found at the Perry Funeral Home were turned over to state investigators, who immediately declared the funeral home closed and its license suspended.
State inspectors said in a statement that they had found “heinous conditions and negligent conduct” at the Perry Funeral Home, including numerous failures to certify death certificates and obtain proper permits for burial.
They said the felonies were “punishable by imprisonment for not more than 10 years or a fine of not more than $50,000 (US) or both.”
Chief Craig said the investigation into the Perry Funeral Home began after a man who has sued that business over its handling of remains of infants and fetuses saw coverage of the discoveries at the Cantrell Funeral Home and told his attorney to contact police.
That lawsuit, filed in July, alleges that the Perry Funeral Home stored the remains of stillborn and live birth babies in the Wayne State University School of Mortuary Science morgue for up to three years without trying to notify parents, some of whom wanted to donate the bodies for medical research.
It also alleges the funeral home may have fraudulently billed Medicaid, as well as the Detroit Medical Centre, for burials it never performed.
The attorneys in that suit, Peter J. Parks and Daniel W. Cieslak, said they believe many more infants’ remains may be found in the improper possession of the Perry Funeral Home, perhaps as many as 200, based on research of log books kept by the Wayne State University School of Mortuary Science.
“I’m really wondering where all the rest of them are,” Mr Cieslak said Friday.
