RALEIGH
A foul smell in a small N.C. town led police to a woman's body that they say had been in the back of a hearse for nine days.
Police in Graham, about 60 miles west of Raleigh, are investigating why the body of Linda Walton, 37, was left unattended for so long.
The hearse is owned by David B. Lawson Mortuary, which now faces an investigation by the state agency that grants funeral licenses. Lawson declined to comment on the case yesterday.
Paul Harris, the executive director of the N.C. Board of Funeral Service, declined to comment on the specifics of the case. If the board decides to discipline Lawson, punishments range from a warning to the loss of his license.
"We certainly don't see this very often," Harris said.
Police in Graham are still investigating and haven't decided yet whether charges will be filed, said Capt. Steve McGilvray.
Criminal charges in the case are unlikely, said District Attorney Pat Nadolski of Alamance County.
"I don't think there's a statute on the books for what happened," he said. "If there were, we would file charges."
North Carolina has a law against the desecration of corpses, but it only applies to bodies that have been buried, Nadolski said.
Winston-Salem police take unclaimed bodies to the Forsyth County Medical Examiner's Office at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, police Lt. David Kiger said. If the body remains unclaimed by a relative, the medical examiner eventually sends the body to state authorities for cremation.
Walton's body was cremated after it was taken from the hearse, McGilvray said. She lived alone in an apartment in Carrboro, about 25 miles east of Graham, according to Capt. J.G. Booker of the Carrboro Police Department.
Police in that town found her body in her home Aug. 11, after she had been dead about a week.
An investigation concluded that she had a history of health problems and had died of natural causes, and Carrboro police contacted Lawson Mortuary. It's one of several funeral services that the police regularly use to transport bodies, although that has changed since Walton's body was found.
"We've put the word out that they would not be a service we'll be using in Carrboro in the future," Booker said.
Neither Carrboro police nor the funeral home could find any next of kin for Walton, leaving the mortuary with custody of the body.
That is becoming a familiar situation across the state and the country, partly because of an economic climate that makes the thousands of dollars necessary for even a simple burial out of reach for some families.
"Since the beginning of the recession two or three years ago, that's been an increasing problem," said Jessica Koth, a spokeswoman for the National Funeral Directors Association.
Whether it is because no family can be found or because the family essentially abandons the body, funeral directors can find themselves in a bind, Harris said. "The funeral home is stuck, because they have custody of the body," he said. "They just want someone to say it's OK to cremate."
Lawson was apparently looking for such guidance, having called the board on Aug. 16 when no one came forward to claim Walton's body. It's not clear what happened after that.
Such permission usually comes from a county social-services department, but in some cases those agencies are reluctant because of liability concerns.
"They don't want to be in a position where, 15 days after a body is cremated, a family member comes forward and says they wanted a burial," he said.
Journal reporter John Hinton contributed to this story.
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