Hoo wee, this story stinks.
[A]shes of more than 370 bodies, nearly two dozen of which appear to be military veterans, ... were abandoned at Cantrell in the spring. ...
A new owner, who purchased the building about a month ago, said the interior smelled horrible. The owner had removed four dumpsters of garbage as he started renovating the space to turn it into a community center. ...
[Brian] Joseph [the owner of Verheyden Funeral Homes in Grosse Pointe Park], who arrived at Cantrell even before the state investigators, was let in by the owner.
The state contacted Joseph, [Joseph] said, because in the spring, as Cantrell's financial and regulatory problems became evident, he had offered to help the operator, Raymond Cantrell II, who had inherited the business after his father died in 2016.
Cantrell then asked Joseph to honor more than 500 of his pre-arranged funeral contracts.
The money paid on the contracts is held by a third party and Joseph said he does not profit from them. He agreed, he said, because Cantrell's father had been a contemporary of the former owner of his funeral home, and he believes that he has a duty to help others in need.
In April, the state suspended Cantrell's license, citing "deplorable, unsanitary conditions." Among the problems authorities found were six decomposing bodies — three men, two women and a male fetus — in the funeral home.
Again, to help, Joseph quietly arranged for the bodies to be buried during the summer at Mount Olivet, which donated space and services. Santieu Vaults in Livonia donated the burial vaults which protect bodies while in the ground.
Joseph is now trying to help identify the hundreds of containers holding cremated remains, some of which appear to go back to 1996. Many of the remains have names with the date the person died, Joseph said, but finding relatives and loved ones is a challenge. ...
"It's a horrible situation," said John Desmond of A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Directors, summing up the problems with remains that were hidden and left behind. "This is the most egregious behavior that I have ever heard of in my 50 years of being licensed in the state of Michigan."
