AG sues Mo. funeral home over mishandled bodies

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The attorney general's office on Friday accused a mid-Missouri funeral home of improperly handling bodies, including storing one body in an electrical room for 10 months without being embalmed or refrigerated. The woman, identified in the lawsuit only as "J.H.," died Sept. 9, 2007, from hepatitis B, hepatitis C and alcoholic hepatitis. State inspectors found her body in advanced decay on July 11, 2008 at a Columbia funeral home. When inspectors returned four days later, the body was still there and was then turned over to the medical examiner's office to be cremated. The attorney general's office filed a lawsuit in Boone County against Warren Funeral Chapel Inc., and its operators Harold Warren Jr. and Harold Warren Sr. A call to the funeral home seeking comment about the allegations in the lawsuit was... [read full story]