Buy a photo

Perry Funeral Home in Detroit on Friday, October 19, 2018.(Photo: Joe Cybulski, Detroit Free Press)Buy a photo

As part of an increasingly wide-ranging investigation into the funeral homes of the Detroit Metro, the Detroit police executed a search warrant in a funeral home located on the west side near Wayne State University, and removed 63 fetal remains, police said.

The custody of the remains – found at Perry funeral home, in Trumbull, just north of Warren Avenue – was assigned to state investigators, who immediately declared the company shut down and suspended his license , according to a Michigan Licensing and Regulatory Affairs statement.

Of this appalling total, there were 36 fetuses stored in boxes and 27 found in freezers, the police said. Friday's discovery of decomposed remains follows a similar find last week at the late Cantrell Funeral Home, located in the eastern part of Detroit, where 11 remains of infants were found after an anonymous letter was sent to the offices. state control authorities in Lansing.

The Friday raid at the Perry's home occurred after Detroit's homicide detectives also broke into QA Cantrell Funeral Home in Eastpointe to investigate a possible connection with the fetuses found in the ceiling of Cantrell Funeral Home in Detroit. According to a press release, detectives seized computers, business phones and documents. They also raided the home of the owner, Anetta Cantrell, the widow of the late founder of the Detroit home bearing the same name.

More: The age of fetuses could be a factor in the lawsuits against Cantrell Funeral Home

More: Detroit police investigate second funeral home and attack third

Detroit police chief James Craig said he was stunned.

"I have never seen anything (like this one) since I was 41 and a half," Craig said at a press conference Friday at a press conference, adding: " It's disturbing, but let's get to the bottom of things. "

Craig said the police had been informed that the father involved in a civil lawsuit for the burial of his granddaughter had been the victim of Perry Funeral Home.

The father's and the deceased's mother's lawyers have stated that the parents are plaintiffs in a lawsuit which, he hopes, will allow them to represent dozens, if not dozens of parents whose baby remains were poorly treated by Perry Funeral Home. The representative file could become a class action bringing together all parents who would file a similar complaint, said Troy's attorney Peter Parks.

"We already thought we had a solid case, and when the news started to reach the media about Cantrell, our clients agreed that we should wear what we knew at the highest level" of the Detroit Police Department, Parks said Friday.

Attorney Daniel Cieslak, his lawyer, presented what they knew on Friday at a meeting led by Craig, which included "the FBI, the Michigan State Police, the Wayne County Attorneys, the Attorney General of the Michigan, LARA Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Department), name it.

The two lawyers said they thought that many remains of infants could be found in the irregular possession of Perry's funeral home, possibly up to 200, based on their newspaper searches kept by Wayne State School. of Mortuary Science. The funeral home regularly deposited the remains of her baby in the WSU school morgue, but did not follow up on parents' wishes to use them for research in search of the WSU School of Medicine. they declared.

"I really wonder where are all the others," Cieslak said late Friday. The lawsuit on both charges that Perry could fraudulently charge Medicaid, as well as the Detroit Medical Center, for burials he never did. Lawyers said they could not estimate how much money might be involved, "but that must be important," said Parks.

"We already have people calling us after seeing the news, saying" it happened, "he said.

Parks and Cieslak brought a civil suit against Perry – also appointing DMC hospitals, Harper / Hutzel, Wayne State University, and Knollwood Memorial Park Cemetery – on behalf of Detachments Rachel Brown and Larry Davis. Their deceased daughter, Alayah, was born with severe breathing problems and survived only 27 minutes after she was born on December 8, 2014, they said. His remains were some of those poorly stored by Perry at the WSU morgue.

"If our class action is certified, we will do our best to identify each of those fetuses" that have been improperly handled by Perry and to find the parents, Parks said.

Parks stated that the case "concerns issues that very clearly touch issues that, as a society, are considered sacred," especially "respect for the final disposition of loved ones."

In a statement released last Friday by the state's Michigan Securities & Commercial Licensing Bureau inspectors, Lansing regulators said they found "odious conditions and careless behavior" at the Perry funeral home, including numerous failures to the certification of burial permits.

Friday's findings clearly point to criminal offenses to state laws governing funeral homes that could constitute crimes "punishable by imprisonment for up to 10 years or a fine of up to $ 50,000. or both, "says a statement from the agency.

Contact Bill Laitner: [email protected]

Read or share this story: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/10/19/fetuses-perry-funeral-home-detroit/1702594002/