DETROIT (WXYZ) — The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) is seeking to revoke the license of Cantrell Funeral home in Detroit, officials announced Friday.
LARA said it has completed its administrative investigation into the funeral home, the designated manager Jameca LaJoyce Boone and formerly licensed Raymond Cantrell II, who inherited the home from his father in 2016.
As a result of multiple Public Health and Occupational code violations, LARA is looking to revoke the funeral home's and Boone's mortuary science licenses, cemetery sales registration and prevent Cantrell II from a future license.
In April, the department suspended Cantrell for "deplorable and unsanitary conditions including the improper storage of decomposing bodies of adult and infants."
From an anonymous tip back in October, police discovered decomposing bodies of 11 infants hidden in the home's ceiling.
LARA formal complaints include:
- Numerous acts of fraud, deceit, dishonesty, incompetence, and gross negligence in the practice of mortuary science.
- Storing deceased human bodies in a disrespectful and callous manner in various locations throughout its facility in a manner, and for a length of time that resulted in several of the bodies reaching an advanced stage of decomposition.
- Unlicensed activity and aiding and abetting unlicensed activity.
- Operating a funeral home without a licensed designated manager.
- Reusing single use caskets.
- Extremely unsanitary conditions and inadequate ventilation in the embalming room.
- The untimely filing of death certificates.
- Knowingly making a false statement on a death certificate.
- Improper storage of medical waste.
- Failure to escrow approximately $65,990 the home received in connection with prepaid funeral contracts
