Agents probe funeral operation
Two bodies found at East Side location
A 911 call came into Columbus police dispatch late Tuesday afternoon about a suspicious sighting: A dark gray van had pulled up to a vacant hair salon in the Driving Park neighborhood on the Near East Side and a body on a gurney was taken inside.
Upon investigating, officers found not one body, but two. The other was “in a box,” according to records of police communication from that evening.
The exterior windows were covered by black tarps, preventing people from looking inside the commercial space, one of three located in one building in the 1600 block of East Livingston Avenue that also houses the Livingston Market on the other end.
Columbus Police Deputy Chief Tim
Becker said a man who officers initially encountered on scene said he was running a funeral home. Police called the Franklin County coroner’s office to verify that, and they were informed that the office thought it was a funeral home they’d dealt with in the past.
Still suspicious, city homicide detectives were called in to investigate. Around 9:30 p.m., a little more than four hours after the 911 call, the Ohio Attorney General’s office contacted city homicide detectives. The attorney general’s Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation would be taking over the case.
The next morning, BCI agents executed a search warrant on the small storefront as part of an ongoing investigation into an unlicensed funeral home operation. BCI removed the two bodies, but a spokeswoman on Thursday declined to say much more.
The head of the Ohio funeral regulatory board confirmed Friday that the makeshift operation involved a man named Shawnte Davon Hardin.
“He’s never been licensed for anything related to funerals,” said Cheryl Grossman, executive director of the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors. She said Hardin had been under investigation by the state Attorney General’s office for some time before the bodies turned up.
‘Whatever may arise’
State incorporation records show that in 2013, Hardin created Shawnte Davon Hardin Services LLC as a for-profit corporation that provides for “the needs of people in the area of real estate, community development, and contracting services in remodeling or political.” The company also said it provides transportation and “guidance in the spiritual development of people.”
“We are here to satisfy the needs that whatever may arise for the need (sic) of the people,” the incorporation filing states. Some parts of the incorporation papers are typed and the other are handwritten.
In 2016, those services shifted to include funeral services, when his corporation filed with the Ohio Secretary of State to create the trade name “Celebration of Life Memorial Chapels,” with the purpose to “conduct any lawful business in funeral serve (sic) and other business.”
Both businesses listed addresses in Akron.
In 2019, the Better Business Bureau issued a consumer alert about Celebration of Life Memorial Chapels, stating that it “operates in an industry that requires licensing,” and neither the business nor Hardin had one.
On Jan. 29, 2019, the BBB reported that it contacted the business “to confirm license status,” the alert says, adding that “Mr. Hardin informed BBB that he is a certified crematory operator and provides home funeral services for lower-income consumers.
“He stated that Ohio does not require licenses for consumers to bury their loved ones. He also stated that he does not do any embalming, which would also require a license. He only helps consumers navigate the processes to get their loved ones cremated or buried and brokers all other services.”
Grossman said she could find no evidence that Hardin had a license as a crematory operator — or any other license related to funeral services.
No one returned a message The Dispatch left with Celebration of Life on Friday.
Past problems
Neither Columbus police nor the state Attorney General’s office would respond to questions about what conditions they found inside the East Livingston Avenue location, including whether the bodies were refrigerated and whether cremation was occurring there.
An unprepared body at room temperature will quickly start to decompose, said Richard Diehl, the owner of Diehlwhittaker Funeral Service in Columbus, which sued Hardin in 2017 after getting numerous calls from families in a period of a week requesting funeral services, but who then quickly canceled after the body was embalmed.
“This happened three of four times within a week, and what alerted us was every time they made a transfer, it was to a funeral home in Akron,” said Richard Diehl, the owner.
“The guy really has no respect at all for the law,” Diehl said. “He didn’t have any facilities at all, and I suspect what he does he gets somebody who lets him use these vacant properties to put these bodies in until he can figure out what to do with them.”
In 2017 Hardin pleaded no contest in Summit County in Akron to “permitting drug abuse,” a first-degree misdemeanor involving allowing a property under your control to be used for drug offenses. He received a sentence of 180 days in jail, which was suspended so long as he stayed out of trouble for two years, Summit County court records show.
In December 2018, Toledo police officers were called to a small building with newspapers covering the windows on reports of an improperly stored body, alerted by a transport driver for the Lucas County Coroner who had delivered a body there. Investigators identified Scottie Rodgers and Hardin as suspects behind the operation, according to a report by WTVG-TV in Toledo.
With the average funeral costing about $7,000, Diehl suspects that Hardin attracts customers by claiming to save them money. Diehl had a meeting with him in 2017, and said Hardin didn’t believe that the state could tell him what to do.
Sanjay Bhatt, the lawyer for the Livingston Avenue property owner, said his client did not know what was going on in the space he was leasing.
Records indicate that Celebration of Life Memorial Chapels is based in Akron, but obituaries show that it was performing “family service assistance” on funerals in Columbus dating back to 2017. Others stated that “arrangements entrusted” to Hardin’s business.
Dispatch researcher and Library Director Julie Fulton contributed to this story. wbush@gannett.com @Reporterbush mferenchik@dispatch.com @Markferenchik bbruner@dispatch.com @bethany_bruner