Two funeral home employees in Florida have been arrested after authorities found 16 corpses that were not stored properly in Bay County.
Deputies with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office made the discovery in the cooler area at the Brock Home Town Funeral Home in Callaway on Sunday. Six bodies were stored without any refrigeration, and 10 bodies were stored at 62 degrees, 22 degrees warmer than the maximum requirement, authorities said.
Funeral home director Gregory Dunphy, 64, and his employee Felicia Boesch, 39, were arrested and charged with 16 counts of unlawful storage of human remains. Dunphy told investigators that he had no access to the additional supplies needed to store the bodies.
“None of the bodies had been embalmed,” officers said in a statement. “Those remains whose families requested cremation had not been cremated.”
Ruth Corley, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office, said that the funeral home was still operating when investigators made the discovery. “They were still receiving people,” Corley told the Northwest Florida Daily News. “They weren’t closed.”
Family members of the deceased voiced their shock on Facebook shortly after the news hit. “We are horrified, devastated and emotionally cannot fathom this,” Kimberly Gates, a sister of one of the deceased, reportedly wrote on Facebook. “Now we can’t view her because the state she is in.”
Shannon R Luck, a niece of one of the deceased, called the discovery “disgusting” because the two employees didn’t do their job. “So over a month later, we have to have him moved from medical examiner’s office to another funeral home to hopefully move forward.”
