A Georgia funeral home owner is facing charges of multiple charges of abuse of dead body after local authorities said they discovered 18 dead bodies in various states of decomposition inside the business while serving an eviction order.
Chris Lee Johnson, 39, of Douglas, Georgia is being charged with 17 counts of abuse of dead body, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Monday. The state’s leading law enforcement agency began investigating over the weekend after Coffee County sheriff’s deputies requested help while carrying out an eviction process.
Arrest warrants state that in multiple cases, Johnson disregarded the proper storage of bodies, which resulted in “the serious disfigurement” of the deceased people at Johnson Funeral & Cremation Services in Douglas.
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The GBI is working with family members of the deceased to learn more about their background and how they ended up at the Johnson’s funeral home. The investigation is ongoing and additional charges are expected to be filed, the agency said in a statement.
Johnson appeared in court on Monday for a bond hearing to determine if the 39-year-old will be held in jail for the duration of the proceedings. A judge determined that due to the severity of the charges Johnson will not be released on bond at this time.
No lawyer for Johnson is listed in online court filings. Johnson indicated in court records that he did not wish to have a public defender represent him as he planned to hire his own attorney.
Johnson ran for Coffee County coroner earlier this year but was defeated in a primary in May, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Douglas is a city of nearly 12,000 residents about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta.
Elsewhere, the owners of a Colorado funeral home who were accused of cheating customers and misspending nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds, all while allegedly storing 190 decaying bodies in a building, pleaded guilty last week to federal fraud charges.
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Jon and Carie Hallford, owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home south of Denver, each pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud under a plea agreement that still has to be approved by a judge. More than 200 criminal counts are pending against them in Colorado state court, including allegations of corpse abuse.
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