The bodies of 11 infant bodies were found in the ceiling of a Detroit nursing home in what will be one of the sickest stories you’ll hear this year.
The discovery was made by a construction crew at the former Cantrell Funeral Home which is being turned into a community center. According to Fox 2, the state of Michigan shut down the funeral home due to issues with ‘decomposing bodies’.
News of the gruesome discovery within a ‘secret compartment’ within the funeral home’s ceiling was announced by the Detroit Police Department Friday night.
Unfortunately however the sheer sickness of this particular funeral home extends well beyond what was reported this past week.
BREAKING NEWS: 11 infant bodies found hidden in the ceiling of a shutdown funeral home in Detroit. @clickondetroit @Local4News pic.twitter.com/dRDBLYT3CZ
— Jermont Terry (@JermontTerry) October 13, 2018
The business was taken over by a man named Raymond Cantrell back in 2017. Less than a year later Michigan shut down the funeral home due to ‘deplorable conditions’ that included 20 bodies stored in a non-refrigerated garage. Some of those bodies were in caskets but others were “lying on tables” and some were “decomposing for months,” according to WDIV.
Michigan’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs released a statement on the closure back in April. Within the release, LARA commented on bodies being in “advanced stages of decomposition”, some bodies “covered in mold” with a third body “with the facial area covered in unknown fluids.”
You can read the full LARA press release here.
You can also read the full complaint below:
Click to access 390754849-Cantrell.pdf
Among some of the other findings by the state include:
“After first being denied entry to conduct an inspection, an inspector found an unclean and unsanitary embalming room, with peeling and chipping paint, water stained walls, dirty floors, and stained protective gear.
Improper storage of embalmed bodies found on April 10, 2018, in an unrefrigerated garage since November and December 2017; a third body was kept from January 9, 2018 until April 17, 2018, when it was cremated.
“Michigan residents trust funeral home directors, owners, and their establishments to follow the law, especially when dealing with the death of a loved one,” said CSCL Director Julia Dale in that press release. “We will continue to aggressively hold every funeral home in Michigan to the highest standards of public health and safety when providing final arrangements.”
Raymond Cantrell previously told authorities (prior to the discovery of the infant bodies) that he was storing the bodies of loved ones for people who couldn’t afford to pay for funerals.
“Flat out disgusted, I can only tell them the truth,” Cantrell mentioned to Fox 2 about the other bodies discovered. “Those who have asked me to hold their loved ones will know I was doing them a favor to accommodate them. For those that weren’t, like the many of the cremated they are trying to take from here or that they are taking from here. Those individuals we called we’ve tried to notify and they haven’t been picked up.”