DOUGLAS — Eighteen bodies found in various stages of decomposition at a South Georgia funeral home have been transported to a GBI Crime Lab for identification, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.
That means families who hired the Douglas business for funeral or cremation services in recent months might have to wait several more hours or days before they learn whether their loved ones are among the 18 corpses, including those of children.
Although most of the bodies had identification tags when they were discovered Saturday at the funeral home, all will undergo a thorough identification process, according to Chief Deputy Fred Cole of the Coffee County Sheriff’s Office.
The bodies were found at Johnson Funeral Home when Coffee County deputies served an eviction notice and discovered the bodies improperly stored in the mortuary cooler.
The funeral home owner, Chris Johnson, remains in custody on 17 counts of abuse of a dead body following his arrest this weekend. Johnson had failed to pay rent, leading to the eviction, according to investigators.
The transfer of the bodies to an out-of-town lab began on Monday night, with the final bodies being delivered Tuesday, according to Cole.
The funeral home lost power for a few days after Hurricane Helene made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast on Sept. 26 and crossed into Georgia.
That might have accelerated decomposition of the bodies, but their mishandling appeared to have begun before the storm, according to Cole. He added the cooler at the funeral home was functioning at the time of the eviction.
He said additional charges are expected in the continuing investigation.
Some relatives told investigators they had previously received ashes for their loved ones, even though their bodies were still in the cooler, investigators said.
Arrest warrants state Johnson “knowingly and willfully defaced a dead body while the body is prepared for burial, showing, or cremation in a funeral establishment.”
The warrants further claim that Johnson’s “willful negligence in his duties as a funeral home director and intentional disregard of proper storage” led to remains being kept for excessive periods, resulting in severe disfigurement of 17 bodies.
Johnson received his license to serve as a funeral director in February 2016, according to the Georgia Secretary of State office, which handles professional licensing. That license remained active Monday.
No complaints against Johnson had been filed with the secretary of state as of last week, according to the agency’s website.
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