Dozens more infant corpses found as Detroit police widen investigation of funeral homes
Source: Washington Post
Post Nation
Dozens more infant corpses found as Detroit police widen investigation of funeral homes
By Avi Selk
October 20 at 1:37 PM
Detroit Police Chief James Craig announced a wide probe into Michigan funeral homes Friday, after hidden caches of baby corpses were allegedly discovered at two unrelated businesses inside a week.
This is deeply disturbing, Craig said at a news conference, hours after police raided Perry Funeral Home and allegedly seized 63 fetus or infant bodies, more than half of which were packed together in unrefrigerated boxes. (1) We want to understand the reasons: Is it financial gain? If so, how? Who knew or who else is involved in this?
The raid came a week after an anonymous letter led investigators to an abandoned funeral home on the other side of central Detroit, where they allegedly found nearly a dozen infant corpses hidden in a ceiling. (2)
....
Avi Selk is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post. He previously worked for the Dallas Morning News. Follow https://twitter.com/aviselk
(1) https://www.facebook.com/detroitpolice/videos/243389139691539/
(2) https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/13/inside-an-abandoned-funeral-home-hidden-compartment-casket-dead-infants/
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/20/dozens-more-infant-corpses-found-detroit-police-widens-investigation-funeral-homes/
Dozens more infant corpses found as Detroit police widen investigation of funeral homes
Link to tweet
Iggo
(47,565 posts)I know I don't want to know, but I gotta know.
DownriverDem
(6,231 posts)that they are trying to find the families of the babies. Also it's an ongoing investigation.
Iggo
(47,565 posts)What reason would they have for not burying the bodies of dead babies?
I'm not asking why bodies which are evidence in an ongoing investigation aren't being released to be buried.
KWR65
(1,098 posts)janx
(24,128 posts)A parent saw the story about Cantrell in the news, Craig told reporters. He told his attorney he wanted to go to the police.
The Detroit News wrote that the tipsters were the parents of Alayah Davis, who died of respiratory failure minutes after she was born in late 2014.
The mother and father sued Perry Funeral Home in July, alleging that the company had claimed to bury Alayah and several other infants at a particular cemetery but had actually stored their bodies for years in a mortuary school morgue.
Perry went so far as to issue fraudulent death certificates for the infants, the parents alleged, and billed Medicaid and hospitals for funerals that were never performed.
jmowreader
(50,562 posts)DownriverDem
(6,231 posts)I've seen where someone said maybe the families didn't have the money to bury them. Because there are so many, it's hard to believe that could be why. I hope they get at the truth.
bucolic_frolic
(43,280 posts)Burial plots cost money. Unless there are paupers' cemeteries or sites. Or it could be more sinister. Abandoned infants, that kind of thing. Whoever used the ceiling as a gravesite probably figured no one would look, or they themselves would be long gone. As if they were thinking clearly.
7962
(11,841 posts)steventh
(2,143 posts)The only motive I can think of for not burying the babies is the funeral homes kept selling the same coffin over and over instead of burying the deceased babies in it. I hope there are severe penalties for the perpetrators.
How heartbreaking for the parents of these dead children.
Socal31
(2,484 posts)Does anyone notice how the article seamlessly blends "fetus" with "infant body", and then uses "infant corpses" exclusively after that? I was looking for a Kavanaugh by-line to be honest.
But then again I can't imagine why medical waste would be at a funeral home. I am not trying to be insensitive, I am genuinely in the dark as to what all of this is about.
End Of The Road
(1,397 posts)Disturbing.
Hekate
(90,788 posts)...if local hospitals were sending miscarriages and abortions to the funeral homes because they were utilizing the crematoria -- it's just so many. Of course, other funeral homes and crematoria have fallen into criminally bad practices with adult bodies, and no one found out for years and years in those cases either.
Third, this is a gruesome and inexplicable mystery. I hope the cops get to the bottom of it. It's just too awful for words.
janx
(24,128 posts)I don't think we can necessarily assume that because I think many of these were stillborn fetuses in very bad states of decay. The journalist probably didn't know quite how to refer to them. I'm not sure if even the experts could initially determine if these remains were babies born alive or stillborn fetuses, due to the decay.
There appears to be a connection between a hospital, the Perry Funeral Home, and Wayne State School of Veterinary Science. At one point at least, Gary Deak was storing these bodies at the university. Was the director of the Perry Funeral Home (Deak) connected to Cantrell? In an older, local article I posted, it was mentioned that he had "interests" in three funeral homes, but that might just be a coincidence.
MichMan
(11,970 posts)janx
(24,128 posts)post #10.
janx
(24,128 posts)One of those articles mentioned a guy named Gary Deak, who is the director of Perry Funeral Home. Here is a sad article about how tough it was when he lost his wife.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/neal-rubin/2015/12/09/betsy-deak-perry-funeral-home-wayne-county-morgue/77074670/
KCDebbie
(664 posts)Nitram
(22,869 posts)janx
(24,128 posts)This part is very weird:
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,600 posts)I try to get a local source when I can, but all I had to work with when I posted was the story in the WaPo.
Reply #10:
Horrifying.
One of those articles mentioned a guy named Gary Deak, who is the director of Perry Funeral Home. Here is a sad article about how tough it was when he lost his wife.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/neal-rubin/2015/12/09/betsy-deak-perry-funeral-home-wayne-county-morgue/77074670/
Nitram
(22,869 posts)expensive waterproof coffin. Are we preserving bodies for the Resurrection?
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)cremation was probably something the "pagans" did, therefore, "Gawd" might be offended by the practice.
The "rapture" fantasy probably also plays a part.
Me, I'll be dust in the wind...
demigoddess
(6,644 posts)plant me and then add tree on top.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Like trillions of animals & billions of people before us!
All living things & all of us are just big old bags of fertilizer.
Sunlei 10/2018
Nitram
(22,869 posts)"Formaldehyde is featured on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of the top 10 most hazardous chemicals for damaging the environment."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embalming_chemicals
Nitram
(22,869 posts)"No state explicitly requires that a person be embalmed. While states differ on the language, the general intent is the same in all states. Human remains be "disposed of" within 24 hours through burial or cremation. If not disposed, then human remains must be preserved. Methods of preservation include both refrigeration and embalming. Refrigeration can include ice, dry ice, or mechanical refrigeration."
https://www.northwoodscasket.com/northwoodscasket/2014/10/27/natural-burial-the-law-are-there-legal-matters-regarding-natural-burial
Nitram
(22,869 posts)of a tree. For now, I blieve that is illegal. I read "The American Way of Death" years ago, where I learned how the National Funeral Directors Association lobbied for laws that required people to be processed by a mortuary before cremation or burial.
demigoddess
(6,644 posts)without coffin or any preservation. I hate formaldehyde. it is in a lot of our perfumes and gives me a migraine. It is poison(literally) and destroys our planet. Why we make it and use it is beyond me.