A former Smith, Bizzell, Warner and Sons Funeral Home employee faces a three-month suspension of his funeral director’s license for allegedly moving the remains of two infants into the home’s ceiling last fall in order to hide them from state inspectors.
The allegations against Benjamin L. Rawls, of Dolton, Ill., are detailed in a petition filed by the Indiana Attorney General’s Office. The Indiana Board of Funeral and Cemetery Service will meet at 10 a.m. Thursday to decide the matter. Indiana Professional Licensing Agency spokesperson Nick Goodwin said there are no other matters involving the funeral home on the agenda.
Gary Police and the Lake County coroner’s office removed the remains of two infants from the ceiling on March 4. The male infant appeared to have been stillborn, and he had a tag from Methodist Hospitals suggesting he arrived in March 2012. The second infant, who appeared to be mummified, may have been at the funeral home since 1996 and investigators couldn’t determine a gender, investigators said.
According to the petition, Rawls was working as the director of the funeral home’s morgue in September 2014. The Indiana Professional Licensing Agency conducted an inspection on Sept. 29, and inspectors didn’t identify any issues. According to the inspection report, Rawls no longer worked at the funeral home as of Feb. 4, but officials declined to clarify whether he was fired or the reason he left during a press conference last month. Rawls did not return a call for comment.
Shortly after the inspection, funeral home manager Felicia Hunter was notified that the remains of the infants had been taken from a locked cabinet and stored in the ceiling, the petition states.
According to the petition, Rawls told Hunter that he hid the infants’ remains above a ceiling tile in the dressing area of the prep room so inspectors would not find them. Hunter removed the remains from the ceiling and put them back in the locked cabinet. She contacted the funeral home’s owner — Concord Family Services, who contracted Lake County Coroner Merrilee Frey in order to complete burial arrangements for the infants, the petition states.
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The coroner’s office couldn’t find a death certificate for either infant, and on March 4, the remains were taken to the coroner’s office for further identification.
Indiana Professional Licensing Agency inspectors met with Hunter on March 5, and a corrective action plan was recommended. During inspections, funeral homes can receive a recommendation of pass, fail or corrective action as needed, Goodwin said. Corrective action is typically recommended when an inspector finds issues that are minor in nature, Goodwin said, and the funeral home must send documentation clarifying the issues have been resolved.
“They did not fail, but because of the situation, the inspector put it down as corrective action,” Goodwin said.
In the inspection report, the funeral home passed all inspection categories, but it also said a funeral director’s license was removed because it had been altered. A receptionist at Smith, Bizzell, Warner and Sons Funeral Home said no one was present to comment on Rawls’ potential suspension or other matters.