CHICAGO (WLS) — Attorneys announced more civil lawsuits Thursday against crematoriums in Chicago Heights and Crown Point, Indiana.
The facilities are accused of negligence and gross mishandling of human remains.
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The initial lawsuit was filed in April. Subsequently, others came forward, raising concerns that their loved ones’ remains might have been mishandled as well.
The new lawsuits from Illinois and Indiana families were announced during a press conference Thursday morning in Chicago
A widow from Munster, Indiana sued the two cremation businesses last month.
She says they mishandled her late husband’s remains.
Darla Smith’s husband, Darryl, died last August.
The lawsuit alleges that Crown Cremation in Indiana transferred her husband’s remains to Heights Crematory in Illinois, where they were not properly refrigerated and remained uncremated for almost three weeks.
“I can’t say for certain if the remains I received are truly my husband’s,” Darla Smith stated. “That was also the first question my children asked when I told them. Is it their father?”
Heights Crematory was recently shut down by the state, after 100 bodies were found.
They were improperly stored.
Neither crematorium has commented on the lawsuit.
“In the weeks since Darla Smith’s lawsuit was filed, we’ve experienced a tidal wave of calls and emails from distressed families,” attorney Gabriel Hawkins said. “It appears that reports in the media thus far are not isolated incidents for periods of a few weeks, but again appear part of a much broader and disturbing pattern.”
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