A Missouri family says that when they went to a funeral home to pick up their loved one’s ashes, they were given an urn along with a cardboard box containing something they did not expect: the man’s brain.
The family of Frederick Dean Love Jr., 68, said the ordeal last year has left them suffering from severe emotional trauma and depression, according to a lawsuit filed in October in the Circuit Court of St. Louis City.
Love’s stepdaughter said she still has severe headaches after she was exposed to a toxic embalming chemical used on the brain, the suit stated.
The family said they immediately realized something was wrong when they arrived at Simpson Funeral Home chapel for an open-casket service on Oct. 3, 2022. Love had died on Sept. 25, 2022, after collapsing at his Missouri home.
One of Love’s stepchildren noticed that his skin “was a bruised purple color,” the lawsuit stated, blaming it on “poor embalming practices.”
“Further, certain rods used during tissue donation, which are to be removed after the donation and before presentation of a body during a funerary service, were negligently and recklessly left in the body of the decedent and presented to the family,” it said. “These rods created an unnatural and rigid appearance to an already poorly handled embalming presentation.”
The family was also upset that the American flag on Love’s casket was “wrinkled and unpressed,” according to the suit. Love was a retired U.S. Armed Forces captain.
Following the funeral, the family’s nightmare continued.
The suit said that on Oct. 6 Love’s wife, son and stepdaughter went to Simpson Funeral Home to pick up Love’s ashes. They were given an urn containing the ashes “along with a plastic sack containing a cardboard box and articles of Fred’s clothing,” according to the lawsuit.
The family placed the items in the stepdaughter’s car and made the six-hour drive back to the family home. During the trip, the stepdaughter smelled “an extremely pungent chemical smell” and…
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