Corpse abuse not deliberate at Arkansas funeral home, defense says

Prosecutor says mortuary had bodies stacked all over

FILE — No activity is seen at Arkansas Funeral Care at 2620 West Main Street in Jacksonville after it was closed down in January 2015. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STEPHEN B. THORNTON
FILE — No activity is seen at Arkansas Funeral Care at 2620 West Main Street in Jacksonville after it was closed down in January 2015. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STEPHEN B. THORNTON

A funeral director accused of criminally mistreating human remains entrusted to his care was caught between obeying laws regulating care of the deceased and satisfying his employer's demands to keep operating costs low, the man's lawyers told a Pulaski County jury on Monday.

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Edward Snow, 64, of Cabot faces up to 54 years in prison on nine counts of abuse of a corpse stemming from the discovery last year of rotting bodies being stored at the now-defunct Arkansas Funeral Care in Jacksonville.

Defense attorneys Marjorie Rogers and Lee Short told jurors that they would see no evidence that Snow physically mistreated any body.

The lawyers said he was doing his best even as his bosses refused to give him the resources, such as appropriate storage or overtime pay, that he needed to accommodate the fast-growing business.

Funeral Care's owners were focused on maximizing their profits, Short told jurors.

Prosecutors told jurors that some remains found at the Main Street business had been on the premises for more than three months.

There were so many remains that required refrigeration, but so little cooler space available, that workers had to rotate bodies in and out of cold storage, deputy prosecutor Ashley Clancy said.

Bodies had to be stacked throughout the building, Clancy said.

The defense countered that Snow couldn't do anything with the bodies because he had not been provided the paperwork required to embalm or cremate them, sometimes because the person's families had been slow to make up their minds about what kind of service they wanted.

Snow will testify, likely today, the defense told jurors.

The charges against Snow resulted from an investigation into the funeral home last year in which state regulators found rotting bodies on the premises. A complaint from a fired former funeral home employee spurred the regulators' inspection.

That former worker is scheduled to testify today after proceedings resume at 10:30 a.m. before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza.

There had been 13 criminal charges against Snow, but prosecutors dropped four of the Class D felony charges before the trial opened Monday.

The probe has already led Funeral Care to close, to give up its operating licenses and to pay a $10,000 civil fine to regulators.

A new company unaffiliated with Funeral Care -- A Natural State Funeral Service -- has since taken over the facility on Jacksonville's Main Street.

Criminal charges levied against the father-and-son owners of Funeral Care, LeRoy Wood and Rodney Jarrett Wood, were dropped by prosecutors in exchange for the company's guilty plea to five counts of corpse abuse with a $50,000 fine.

In opening statements Monday, deputy prosecutor Tonia Acker told the eight women and four men on the jury that bodies were kept at the facility much longer than necessary, anywhere from six days to two months, frequently without being kept in cold storage as the law requires.

One body had been on the premises for almost four months without being embalmed or cremated, Acker said, warning jurors that they will see some graphic photographs of decomposing remains during the trial.

Jurors will be called upon to decide whether the way the remains were treated violates laws designed to protect the dignity of the deceased by barring treatment that is "offensive to a person of reasonable sensibilities," she said.

Jurors will have to examine Snow's conduct and decide whether he could have handled the bodies more appropriately, she said.

Metro on 06/28/2016

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