Bodies Left In Funeral Home For Years

(AP)  Four decomposed bodies left behind in a recently sold funeral home were "definitely not" the responsibility of the business' former director, the man said Wednesday.

"Definitely not. Definitely not. I'm almost positive," said Darryl Cammack, the owner of the defunct Serenity Gardens Funeral Home in Gary. "I'm sure they're not."

The bodies were discovered Sunday by leaders of the Northlake Church of Christ after the church bought the vacant building in a tax sale. Lake County Coroner David Pastrick and his staff found one body in a bag on a table, another in a burial box and two in caskets.

The identities of the bodies have not been determined. Pastrick did not return a message seeking comment left by The Associated Press.

Cammack said he let another funeral director use the facility after the state revoked his business license in 2006. He said he doesn't believe the bodies were left from when he ran the funeral home.

The state board that regulates funeral homes said it had no record of anyone running Serenity Gardens after Cammack's license was revoked. Tracy Hicks, director of the state Board of Funeral and Cemetery, said Indiana law requires notification if a funeral home is sold or if a new director takes over an existing facility.

Cammack's license was revoked after the state received at least six complaints alleging forged signatures, failure to deliver death certificates and delayed delivery of cremated remains by more than a year.

Cammack said the complaints were the results of misunderstandings. He said he lost his license after he did not fulfill some state requirements because of health problems.

He had previously lost his license in Illinois in 2003 for failing to file a death certificate promptly. Cammack said the problems there stemmed from the death of his father and the loss of paperwork when he moved his business from Illinois to Indiana.

Maggie Bey, who filed a complaint accusing Cammack of inflating her brother's funeral cost and forging her signature, said she never saw anyone but Cammack operating Serenity Gardens. The Gary resident lives less than half a mile from the home.

"I saw him come in and out a couple of times, but as far as somebody doing business, no. That's not true," she said.

Cammack said he was confident the matter would be resolved quickly.

[eferrell2]

If you are stupid enough to believe this junk, you deserve what you get. It's like any other business - LET THE BUYER BEWARE! And, obviously, there's a fool born every minute.

[rrozsa]

Good luck trying to identify these bodies. One could be Drew Peterson's missing wife, for all we know.

[leeanna59]

If I ran a funeral home, I would put it in the contract that if arrangements for burial had not been made within a specified date, the body would be cremated. I would collect the cost of the cremation up front as an initial deposit.

[terpman92]

I would never trust these small funeral homes. They seem to attract the mentally handicapped. It's like everything else, when a funeral home offers a rock bottom price, run like the wind!

[mutnauq4842]

If you want to be cremated instead of buried, they still make you buy a casket to burn you in.

If you want to be buried instead of beiing put in a crypt, they stll make you buy a concrete crypt to put in the ground to bury you in.

In some places you aren't allowed to be buried naked, you have to have clothes on.

Its all quite mad.
Posted by spiritwalk at 9:48 PM : May 27, 2009

Nah, it's not mad. It's part of the guilt trip the funeral home lays on the family of the "dearly departed". So many of these money hungry baztards play the shoebox gambit in order to guilt the family into a higher priced service.

There is a special place in hellll for this type of guilt tripper-three levels below lawyers and two levels above "send me money" seed faith ministers.

[spiritwalk]

If you want to be cremated instead of buried, they still make you buy a casket to burn you in.

If you want to be buried instead of beiing put in a crypt, they stll make you buy a concrete crypt to put in the ground to bury you in.

In some places you aren't allowed to be buried naked, you have to have clothes on.

Its all quite mad.

[armyoftwelve]

This is more common than most people think. Trouble is funerals can be very expensive
so if you don't have the $$$ the remains of your loved one wind up like this.