By Chris Joyner
Jackson, MS - When Cindy Johnston's husband died in 2004, she followed his wishes and had his remains cremated by Mark Seepe Funeral Directors and Crematorium in Jackson. She recalls Seepe as helpful, professional and charming. "He was very charismatic. He probably could have talked us into anything at that point," she said. It is a common impression left by a man now under intense scrutiny after photographs taken by a former employee surfaced last week that appear to show human remains - ashes and bones - being heaped together in a metal drum.
Since then, other past Seepe employees say he routinely kept buckets and storage bins filled with mixed human remains.
Seepe has denied he commingled ashes from his cremator but has offered little explanation for the statements of past employees. He would not look at the photographs.
"We're going to have a positive response in the next couple of days," he said last week. "I'm just as shocked as anybody else."
Josh Hatten said he knows the commingling of ashes has gone on at least since 1999 when he first started working for Seepe. Charming and persuasive to his clients, Seepe would pass off mixed ashes kept in 5-gallon buckets as the remains of a loved one, Hatten said.
Hatten took several years off from working for Seepe. In 2006, Hatten returned to work there. At the same time, he got serious about his coursework in mortuary school at Holmes Community College. Last fall, he took a mortuary law class, which prompted him to report Seepe to the Mississippi Board of Funeral Services in November.
In the complaint, Hatten alleged Seepe delivered ashes to the family of Edwin Van Every while Van Every still was lying on the preparation table at the crematory. Investigators arrived on the scene a few hours later but could find no evidence of wrongdoing.
"I hate to say this, but I feel vindicated. No one wanted to listen to me when I blew the whistle on this in November of last year," he said.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood's office is investigating the allegations. Police and investigators were at the Seepe crematory Friday after The Clarion-Ledger reported bones could be seen peaking from debris in a trash bin outside the business on Lorenz Boulevard.
The funeral board will hold its regular monthly meeting Thursday at 9 a.m. and several families affected by the allegations have said they plan to attend.
Lei An Adams, whose brother was taken to Seepe's for cremation four years ago, said she plans to be there. She is so upset with how the state has handled the allegations against Seepe that she wants Gov. Haley Barbour to name her to the board as a public representative.
"I don't want this to happen to anybody else," she said. "I want to be the one to go out and inspect and I want it to be a surprise when I get there."
Adams crisscrossed the metro area in a search for answers last week with the box she hopes contains her brother's remains. She was incensed when she heard bones had been seen Friday in a trash bin outside the crematory.
"It is not supposed to go to a public dump. That's against the law. That's desecration," she said.
It is unclear what, if any, criminal charges Seepe could face if allegations about his practices prove to be true. Desecration of human remains is a felony in the state, but Hood's office has said little about the investigation.
While the general public had no idea of suspicions about Seepe until last week, people with connections to the funeral industry said they have been wary of him for some time.
Dr. Norman Moore, professor of anatomy at University of Mississippi Medical Center and director of the teaching hospital's human donor program, said donated bodies are taken to a crematory in Pearl once their medical usefulness is over. The ashes are then returned to the families or buried in individual bags in a common grave in the UMC cemetery.
"The ashes are never commingled," he said. "They are bagged and identified."
When asked why UMC does not use Seepe's crematory, Moore said, "He had a reputation, and I went where I felt the most comfortable."
Likewise, UMC does not use Seepe to cremate the remains of stillborn infants or miscarriages.
"It's common knowledge. His license gets pulled," said Dedria Mitchell, UMC manager of morgue services. "We don't want to do business with someone like that."
Seepe did have his license pulled by the state in 2005 for two years for performing funerals in an unlicensed facility.
Court records show Seepe has struggled personally and financially for several years, even to the point of losing his business to foreclosure and being arrested twice for violating the terms of his 2002 divorce. Seepe's ex-wife summoned him to Hinds County Chancery Court repeatedly for two years following their divorce in an attempt to get money owed on their former home and child support payments.
To settle the case, Chancery Judge Denise Owens ordered Seepe's two business locations sold at auction. In 2004, Belhaven College bought one location on Riverside Drive and Trustmark National Bank bought the Lorenz Boulevard operation. Court documents show Seepe would not move out of either location and continued to operate his business.
One February 2005 filing by Trustmark asking the court to compel Seepe to leave noted "there exists on the Lorenz Boulevard Property the remains of corpses which have been cremated." The attorneys for Trustmark wanted Seepe to remove them as well.
In April, Trustmark agreed to sell the Lorenz Boulevard building back to Seepe and dropped the Chancery Court suit.
On Friday, Seepe would not talk about his financial problems. As for the arrests, he said, "Divorce is divorce. That's the way that goes."
Funeral board chairman Charles Riles said the board is fielding between 50 and 75 calls a day from people who have used Seepe's services.
"People call me and tell me, 'Can you tell me that my baby or my husband or my daughter is in this urn?' and my answer is, 'No, I cannot tell you that, but I pray so,' " he said.
Riles said the board occasionally receives complaints from the public about a funeral director or crematory operator, but those complaining rarely will agree to testify in a hearing. That cycle may be broken now, he said.
"There was an individual, and now several individuals, willing to testify and photographs," he said.
People in the funeral services industry have followed the developments in Mississippi.
Mike Nicodemus, who operates a crematory in Virginia Beach, Va., and is on the board of the Cremation Association of North America, said states are too lax in their standards for crematory operators. Only 12 states require crematory operators to undergo training and certification, he said. Mississippi is not among them.
"The families should receive everything from the skeletal remains of that body," he said.
Any remains not collected from a cremation should not fill a thimble, he said.
Riles said the state has no continuing education requirement for the licensing of crematory operators.
"We have pushed and pushed for that. It will come. It's part of bringing this into the 21st century," he said. "I'm concerned about it just for the simple ethics of our business."
Nicodemus said reports like those coming from Mississippi affect the perception of the entire industry.
"Places that operate like that should be shut down," he said.
And if past incidents are any indication, Nicodemus said, funeral homes that contracted with Seepe "better be prepared."
"They better be calling their insurance companies, because they are going to get it," he said. "The courts will hold their feet to the fire."
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080330/NEWS/803300360/1002
|
