GA - Family Sues After Receiving Wrong Cremated Ashes of Loved One

A family from Clayton County suffered much anguish and heartaches when they received the wrong cremated remains of a dearly-departed loved one. They refused to take matters sitting down and have decided to fight back and sue all those involved in the enraging mix-up - the local funeral home, hospital and crematory.

Family sues after receiving wrong cremated ashes https://t.co/Kz1WQDVr13 pic.twitter.com/L0auppMEXg

— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) December 28, 2018

Thing is, none of the defendants accept responsibility for the mix-up. Both the hospital and crematory insist that they can show documented proof that they complied with necessary legal procedures in the cremation.

The family of Patricia Bradley received a box from Speers-Shelton Funeral Home in McDonough which they assumed to be their deceased loved one’s ashes. It happened in September, just before their planned memorial service for Bradley.

To the family’s shock, they got a call the following month from Southern Regional Medical Center about claiming their beloved’s body, and that’s when the still grieving kin realized that they were cruelly given the wrong ashes to mourn and pay tribute to via a memorial service.

Edwin Shelton, the funeral director, confirmed that the Cremation Services of Atlanta delivered the wrong remains. However, Mike Boston, the president of the Cremation Services of Atlanta, refutes Shelton’s story and gives a timeline that is contradictory to the account of Shelton.

State records show that Shelton’s funeral director license has previously been suspended and also received a 3-year period of probation from 2009 to 2012 following a major dispute when the funeral services kept an unrefrigerated corpse in the funeral home for five months amid a financial disagreement with a grieving family.

As far as the family is concerned, however, they were wronged and there’s a need for accountability for the anguish they endured. On Christmas day, they named all three parties as defendants in their lawsuit in order to credibly establish why the sorry mix-up happened. The family is also seeking compensation for what happened, especially since their deceased loved one’s remains are still in Shelton’s possession while they are engaged in a legal battle.

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