3 to face complaints tied to funeral home
Panel sets date to hear ex-workers
The state’s funeral board will hear complaints in May against three former employees of a Jacksonville funeral home that was shut down earlier this year over allegations that it violated state regulations regarding the storage of bodies.
On Wednesday, the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors set a May 13 meeting to hear complaints against former Arkansas Funeral Care employees, including Edward Snow, a former funeral director and embalmer at the facility.
The hearing, open to the public, is set for 9 a.m. May 13 in the state board’s offices in downtown Little Rock at 101 E. Capitol Ave.
Arkansas Funeral Home voluntarily surrendered its license during a Jan. 23 meeting with the state board after a series of mid-January inspections at the business reportedly found several violations. Arkansas Funeral Care’s founder and funeral director LeRoy Wood also surrendered his license during the meeting, along with the funeral home’s crematory license. The surrender of the licenses effectively closed the facility, which opened in 2006. Wood and the funeral home were also fined a total of $10,000.
The funeral home also voluntarily surrendered its prepaid funeral-benefits contracts license on Feb. 10.
Snow is the focus of seven of the nine complaints scheduled for the hearing. Former employee Glenda Beard is the focus of two complaints, including one contained in a complaint against Snow, and former employee John Matthew Gibbs is the focus of one complaint.
The first complaint against Snow was made Jan. 12 by Mike Jones, a licensed embalmer and funeral director and former Arkansas Funeral Care employee. Jones alleged that Snow had “at
least once in my [presence] … cremated two bodies at once.”
Jones also stated that Snow “signed off an apprentice, namely Glenda Beard, who became a licensed embalmer who does not know how to embalm.”
Snow replied to the accusations in a Jan. 20 letter to the board, stating that each of Jones’ allegations were “not true.” Snow wrote that Beard was “a very good embalmer” and “learned very quickly.”
“Glenda learned how to embalm and did a good job,” Snow wrote.
Addressing the allegation of two bodies being cremated at once, Snow wrote, “never has there been two bodies cremated at the same time. No time has that ever happened.”
Another complaint against Snow received Jan. 26 by the board alleges that when the complainants’ mother-in-law was buried Jan. 16, the “corners of her mouth and her hands were black and decomposing.”
“My mother-in-law looked so bad that people were gawking,” the complaint reads. “It did not in any way resemble her.”
Snow replied in a Feb. 9 letter to the board that the family asked if the funeral home could get the swelling out of the body. “I told them we would do our best,” he wrote. “Much of the swelling did not go out.”
Another complainant stated that Arkansas Funeral Care handled the cremation of their father in January. But after receiving news of the “total negligence of the deceased” at the funeral home, the complainant asked in a letter received by the board Jan. 28: “What am I to expect of the body that is in a box at my home? Is this my father’s remains or a beloved family member of someone else? I am appalled.”
Snow replied in a Feb. 9 letter that the cremation took place in January, and “the cremains were mailed … and the family received them on Jan. 21.”
Gibbs replied Feb. 26 to a complaint received Jan. 27 by the board that also involves Snow, concerning comments from family members of a deceased person and his “blackened” hands. The family alleges that it was told that “his hands were blackened because of the length of time he had been deceased,” though Gibbs’ written response to the complaint said the man had been “diseased.”
“I did have a in-person conversation with the family informing them that due to the amount of time their father had been diseased that the tips of his fingers had turned black and after the embalming process was complete, they remained discolored,” Gibbs wrote, “and that it was in my opinion, it was in their best interest to provide something like a Bible that would further distract that discoloration for the public viewing.”
The licenses of Arkansas Funeral Care and Wood were temporarily suspended by the board during an emergency hearing Jan. 21, after the board reviewed a report from inspector Leslie Stokes. While investigating complaints against Wood and the funeral home, including Jones’ original complaint, Stokes reported finding a cooler “filled beyond capacity with bodies,” including bodies “stacked on top of each other,” “seven bodies outside of the cooler that had not been embalmed” and one body “in an obvious state of decomposition.”
Officials with the state Crime Laboratory and the Pulaski County coroner’s office removed 31 bodies from the funeral home Jan. 21 after the suspension. Another 25 cremated remains were held by the funeral home.
A total of six civil lawsuits have been filed against Arkansas Funeral Care: three in late January, two in late February and one on Monday. One lawsuit each has been filed in circuit courts in Garland and Miller counties, with four suits filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
The funeral home and Wood are named in all six lawsuits, and Snow is named in two. The lawsuits accuse the parties of negligence and other charges.