Charges dropped for 2 in Arkansas funeral-home backlog of bodies

Relatives wanted to avoid corpse-abuse trial, prosecutor says; lawsuits pending

1/21/2015
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STEPHEN B. THORNTON
A man loads something into a truck behind Arkansas Funeral Care at 2620 West Main Street in Jacksonville, Wednesday.
1/21/2015 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STEPHEN B. THORNTON A man loads something into a truck behind Arkansas Funeral Care at 2620 West Main Street in Jacksonville, Wednesday.

The Pulaski County prosecuting attorney’s office on Thursday dropped criminal charges against a father and son who owned the now-defunct Arkansas Funeral Care funeral home, where investigators found a backlog of bodies waiting to be cremated or embalmed in January of 2015.

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Leroy Wood, 87, of Jacksonville and his son Rod Wood, 62, of Heber Springs had been charged with 13 felony counts of abuse of a corpse. Also charged was Edward Snow, 64, of Cabot, the former manager of the Jacksonville funeral home.

Officials with the state Crime Laboratory and the Pulaski County coroner’s office picked up 31 bodies and 22 cremated remains from the funeral home Jan. 21, 2015, after an investigation determined that the business violated state regulations.

A state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors’ inspector, who is no longer with the agency, reported finding a cooler “filled beyond capacity with bodies” during a visit to the funeral home. Bodies were “stacked on top of each other” and “seven bodies [were] outside of the cooler that had not been embalmed,” according to the investigator’s report.

Arkansas Funeral Care was shut down Jan. 23, 2015.

Snow was arrested June 15. The Woods were arrested June 16. All three pleaded innocent.

Earlier this month, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza granted a motion to separate Snow’s case from the Woods’ case.

A pretrial hearing on Snow’s charges is scheduled in Piazza’s court for May 24 with a trial scheduled for June 27-28. Deputy Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Tonia Acker noted that Snow is an employee and not an owner of Arkansas Funeral Care LLC and that her office would continue communication with his lawyer about a possible settlement of his case.

“I don’t know what the prospect of that is at this point,” she said Thursday.

The Woods were scheduled to go to trial Monday, but Thursday at a pretrial hearing Acker said the criminal charges against Leroy and Rod Wood had been dropped.

After talking to some of the families of the deceased, Acker determined that a trial would have been traumatizing and emotionally difficult for the survivors.

“A lot of them, they’re hurting and they just want to not open this wound again,” Acker said.

Acker described in detail Thursday the conditions of the bodies of the deceased named in the criminal complaint. Several of the corpses suffered “skin slippage,” leaking bodily fluids and excessive discoloration.

In one case, the family had given the funeral home clothing and a photo to use to restore the deceased to a more natural state. The items, found with the body, were soiled and soaked in bodily fluids, Acker said.

She added that given Leroy Wood’s age, it didn’t seem likely that criminal punishment would lead to incarceration. Acker called Leroy Wood “the more culpable” of the two. There was little evidence that the son was actively involved in the day-to-day operation of the funeral home, where the father “was there and active in the running of the business” she said.

Former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, now a private-practice lawyer who represents Leroy Wood on the criminal charges, maintained the innocence of the individuals charged.

“They did not believe, nor do they believe now, that Ed Snow or anyone else in their company did anything intentionally wrong,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel has said all along that the state might be able to prove negligence but not malicious intent in regard to the mistreatment of the human remains.

In a court filing late Wednesday, Arkansas Funeral Care LLC — majority-owned by the Woods and managed by Leroy Wood — was added as a defendant in the case. In exchange for the criminal charges being dropped, the Woods agreed for their limited liability corporation to plead guilty to five of the 13 counts of abuse of a corpse. Sentencing for the corporation is scheduled for May 19.

Because a corporation cannot serve jail time, only fines can be levied. Abuse of a corpse is a Class C felony, which carries a fine up to $10,000 on each count. Because it is the corporation that pleaded guilty and not an individual, the fines may be up to double the maximum statutory amount, Acker said. So Arkansas Funeral Care LLC could be on the hook for as much as $100,000 in fines.

Sentencing on the counts against the corporation was put off until May so the state can ascertain the Woods’ financial situation. McDaniel said the corporation is replete of all assets, having sold the building and its contents.

“The corporation itself has no assets left remaining,” McDaniel said. “There’s nothing hidden. There’s no money left.”

In a one-page statement Leroy Wood released through McDaniel, Wood said he was away from the business because of illness from Jan. 2-12, 2015, with only a brief visit Jan. 6. When he returned Jan. 12 he noticed that the funeral home’s cooler was filled beyond capacity and that additional human remains were being stored outside the refrigerated area.

“I did not open the cooler and see for myself but recognized that we had a serious problem,” Wood said in his typed statement.

He said he took several measures to try to improve conditions, including telling Snow to add a second shift for cremation, turning off the heat in the storage and work area, asking other funeral homes for help — they refused, he said — and ventilating the outside air to lower the temperature in the work area.

Wood said he personally took charge of preparing remains for services and overseeing services so that Snow and his crew could continue to operate the crematorium.

“In hindsight, I now see that we failed to take additional steps that would have been helpful,” Wood said. “We should have stopped accepting new clients immediately.”

Other measures that he said could have prevented the backlog of bodies included ensuring that Snow and his team were properly staffed and supervised, calling crematoriums outside of Little Rock to assist with volume and calling the Crime Lab for temporary storage that is available around the state for such circumstances.

Wood said he didn’t know that the latter was an option back in January 2015.

“My family and I are deeply sorry that this negligence on the part of our company occurred and regret the pain it has caused,” Wood concluded.

Attorney Patrick Benca, who represented Rod Wood in the criminal case, said his client “is pleased that he was found to have done nothing wrong.” Benca said the statement by Leroy Wood “does a sufficient job addressing the problems that the corporation was having at that time.”

“Of course he, too, is heartbroken for the families of the loved ones,” Benca said.

In addition to the criminal charges, several families of the deceased filed civil lawsuits against the Woods, Snow and the funeral home. At least five of the civil cases allege mistreatment of deceased individuals named in the criminal complaints: Melinda Rowell, Sherry Ray, Gary Newman, James Cummings and John Loveless.

The lawsuits filed by the families of Rowell, Newman and Ray are ongoing, Acker said. The lawsuits filed by the families of Cummings and Loveless have been dismissed with prejudice, meaning they can’t be refiled.

One reason a civil case could be dismissed is because it is settled, but Little Rock attorney Joshua Gillispie — who represented the Cummings and Loveless families — would neither confirm nor deny that those cases were settled.

Acker said another reason for dismissing the criminal charges against the Woods was to preserve the civil litigation some of the families of the deceased have pending against the Woods.

“I have never been a part of a case like this one,” McDaniel said. “It has been unusual from beginning to end, and it is tragic, but we are very pleased and grateful for the outcome today.”

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