Parents who received what they thought were the ashes of their infant son are now suing a funeral home and crematorium after his decomposing remains were found.
The Washington, D.C. area couple, Chris Parham and Laquanda Brown, were still in the process of mourning their two-month-old when police contacted them with disturbing news; their son’s body had been found decaying at the Heaven Bound Crematorium in White Plains, Maryland.
The child was reportedly still wearing the clothes he was dressed in for the funeral, Fox 5 DC reports.
Now, the parents are suing the crematorium and Stewart Funeral Home for $10 million each.
This isn’t the first time the crematorium has been accused of mishandling the recently deceased.
In 2017, the Maryland Death Services Oversight Board found evidence suggesting the funeral home hadn’t been properly storing its human remains. State investigators found human bodies being stored in cardboard boxes and stacked like cargo. Arms and legs were reportedly hanging out of body bags, and various fluids — including blood — were leaking onto the floor.
The business was shut down in January of this year following the discovery.
CJ Greenidge, who used the company to handle her father’s remains just before the state’s discovery, called the proprietors “evil.”
“The people that were in charge of running Heaven Bound were evil. I think they took advantage of people at their worst and most vulnerable point,” she told WMAR News in January. “It causes real damage. It’s a lot to deal with losing someone that you love and to know that as soon as they left this house, you don’t know what could have happened.”
Governor Wes Moore has opened an investigation into the state’s oversight board to determine why the business was allowed to continue despite numerous red flags.
Parham and Brown did not even know their child wase going to be sent to Heaven Bound by Steward Funeral Home in D.C. The couple told Fox 5 that they felt lied to and that they still have not received their son’s remains, despite receiving a set of ashes.
Both Heaven Bound and Stewart Funeral Home — as well as their owners, Rosa Turner and Brandon Williams, respectively — are named in the parents’ lawsuit. The filing claims that the businesses inflicted severe emotional distress on the grieving parents.
The Independent has tried to contact Heaven Bound and Stewart Funeral Home for comment.
