Lawsuit Filed After Woman Discovers She Had Incorrect Cremains for 27 Years

A Michigan woman named Daisy Marshall, who was given an urn of her late husband’s ashes at his memorial service in 1991, recently discovered that her husband had been buried without her knowledge. Consequently, she is suing the funeral home.

Daisy Marshall, 85, discussed her lawsuit with Detroit-based ABC affiliate WXYZ against Wilson-Akins Funeral Homes, the entity responsible for handling her late husband, Charles Marshall’s, funeral in 1991. Marshall recounted to WXYZ how, during the memorial service, she received an urn which she believed contained her husband’s cremains.

While making pre-arrangements for her own burial in 2022, with plans to be interred alongside the urn she thought held her husband’s ashes, she learned that her husband had already been buried.

In the WXYZ interview, Marshall mentioned that employees at Great Lakes National Cemetery informed her that “someone was interred under my husband’s ID already. And the ashes had been delivered there in December of 2018.”

According to WXYZ, in 2018, state orders directed the funeral home to secure final resting places for all unclaimed remains. The cremains at Wilson-Akins Funeral Home, supposedly belonging to Charles Marshall, a U.S. Air Force veteran, were interred at Great Lakes National Cemetery.

Marshall only discovered her husband’s burial in 2022. She expressed to WXYZ her “shock” and pondered, “Where had those ashes been all that time, and whose ashes did I have?”

In a lengthy statement to WXYZ, attorney Brunette Brandy, who represents Wilson-Akins Funeral Home, said, “Mrs. Marshall did not want all of the ashes and only took part of the ashes, and directed [the funeral director] to only give her part of the cremated remains and asked that the rest of the cremated remains to go back to Wilson-Akins Funeral Home for storage.”

Brandy further stated, “Mrs. Marshall rejected taking the entire delivery of the cremated remains, as she only wanted part of the ashes, she was under a duty to pick up the ashes at the Wilson-Akins Funeral Home.”

Marshall flatly denied that she made that request. She told WXYZ, “That conversation never happened. It never happened. Even if the conversation had taken place, I was supposed to be given, according to what I’ve read, some written communication to pick those ashes up.”

Brandy stated that the funeral home “exceeded its obligation by storing these cremated remains, which were unclaimed for 27 years.”

A lawsuit was filed in Michigan’s Wayne County on behalf of Daisy Marshall against Wilson-Akins Funeral Home. The litigation is ongoing.