As news spread Sunday that law enforcement officials had found the remains of 18 people in various stages of decomposition at a funeral home in her hometown, Donna Harper feared the worst.
She read about the discovery in a Facebook post.
Her husband, Gary, an avid outdoorsman who ran a septic tank business and had served in the Marines, died of lung ailments in late June. He was 63.
His memorial service was July 3 in the chapel at Johnson Funeral & Cremation Services on the south side of Douglas, the very funeral parlor along U.S. 441 where the authorities found the decomposing bodies.
After the service, Donna said Gary’s remains were supposed to be cremated. Sometime later she received a pair of urns with what she was told were her husband’s cremains.
But now, in the wake of the grim revelation over the weekend, she wonders if the ashes she received were his, or whether they were even ashes at all.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has spoken to four other people whose deceased kin’s funeral arrangements in recent months were believed to have been handled by Johnson’s business. Each described the heart-wrenching nature of not knowing whether their relative’s corpse was among those found Saturday.
The funeral home’s owner, Chris Johnson, 39, has been jailed on 17 charges of abuse of a dead body. Authorities have said they learned of the bodies during Johnson’s eviction from the funeral home building.
Kristen Kitchens for the AJC
Kristen Kitchens for the AJC
The funeral home’s website lists obituaries for 36 people so far this year. Gary Harper’s obit is the sixth most recent.
His wife, like relatives of the other decedents, can only wonder if Gary’s body was among the ones that investigators are now trying to identify.
“I’m waiting for the call,” Donna, 66, told the AJC on Tuesday.
But it might be a while. She said she has been told it will be a long process as investigators sort out the bodies.
She said officials are asking families of the deceased to describe for them the clothes that their dead loved ones wore at their funerals.
Does Donna believe Gary’s body might be one of the ones discovered?
“Yes, I do think that. I don’t know it for sure,” she said in a phone interview.
She said the authorities have taken the ashes from her to determine whether they are human.
“To see if they’re ashes or if they’re something else, like sand. … Or it could be somebody else’s ashes. You never know,” Donna said.
The GBI, in an email to the AJC early Wednesday, said its agents were getting in touch with families that used the funeral home “to help determine the identity of remains and to investigate the business practices.”
At times, Donna spoke through tears and thanked people for their prayers.
“It’s bad when you can’t sleep because you don’t know if it’s your loved one or your loved ones laying there decaying,” she said.
Arrest warrants allege 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 was denied bail at his first court appearance and was being held in the Coffee County jail. He has not responded publicly to the allegations.
If Johnson did what he is accused of, “I’ll be honest with you: I hope the man rots in hell for what he’s done. … It takes a sick person, a very sick person, to do something like this,” Donna Harper said.
She said fall was her late husband’s favorite time of year. He was a deer hunter. He raised chickens. Four of his dogs were mentioned by name in his obituary — Blackjack, Baby, Jocko and Jojee.
“He was a pure country boy,” Donna said of the man she met in 1988. “He liked the woods. … He liked his animals better than he liked people. … (But) he would help anybody in the world if they asked him to.”
