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ALTON -- A mourning family wanted to take a last look at Lloyd White after his funeral Monday, but what they saw in the coffin was shocking -- they said the body appeared not to have been embalmed and lay naked under a bloody hospital sheet.
White, 58, of Alton, was wearing a hat his widow Helen had bought him, but not the new suit, shirt and tie she had purchased for his burial by Williams Mortuary.
She said she wasn’t even sure the unrecognizable corpse was that of her late husband of 36 years, who died Oct. 10.
"It didn’t even look like my husband, it looked like they did-up somebody else," she said. "I paid money for that, but he (the funeral director) wouldn’t let me say goodbye."
Helen White said she paid Alton funeral director Roy Williams $750 for his services.
To add to the grieving family’s stress Monday, Williams reportedly drove off in a hearse with White’s body from Upper Alton Cemetery, where the body was to be buried.
Neither the funeral director nor the body was anywhere to be found for hours.
Police finally did locate the corpse at the funeral home while carrying out a search warrant Monday evening, Chief Chris Sullivan said. A crew from Twin Rivers Search and Rescue left the property at 7:05 p.m. and took the body to the Madison County Morgue in Wood River, where it is being held pending an investigation by police.
Sullivan said the department has asked a licensed mortician to conduct an inspection of the body to see if and when it had been embalmed and whether the condition of the body was in keeping with expected funeral home practices. The inspection is to be done by Chris Wooldridge, a deputy coroner in Jersey County.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15404838&BRD=1719&PAG=461&dept_id=25271&rfi=6
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