More Alleged Victims of Funeral Home

KANSAS CITY, MO —A metro funeral home that is already in trouble with state regulators is facing new accusations from another family has stepped forward to say that the ashes they were given were not those of their loved one.

Earlier this week, the Missouri Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors revoked the license of Marts Memorial Funeral Home in Westport and owner Ronald Marts' personal funeral directors license effective at the end of the year. The move came after a Blue Springs man, Hadley Cutburth, said that the funeral home provided an urn with ashes inside for her funeral, but when Cutburth called the funeral home later to ask about his wife's death certificate, a secretary told him that she had his wife's ashes on her desk.

"I'm thinking 'How can she have a box of ashes'?" said Cutburth, who has filed a civil suit against Marts alleging fraud and negligence.

When the McNeal family of Kansas City heard the story on FOX 4 News, they said that they wondered if the same thing could have happened to them.

Lujuan McNeal says that her family picked up the ashes for their father, Harry McNeal, a year ago, but a call to Stonegate Crematorium on Thursday confirmed their fears, as the metal ID tag with the ashes does not match their father's records. According to the crematorium, their father was still being cremated when Ronald Marts handed them a box of ashes.

"We have someone else's ashes, which means they have incorrect ashes, which means another family has incorrect ashes," said McNeal. "There's no telling how many people this has actually effected."

McNeal says that her family is working with the crematorium to get the ashes they were given to their rightful owners, and they hope that somehow their father's ashes will still be found.

In a statement, Mart's attorney, Salvatore Mirabile, said that the ashes mix-up was not his clients fault.

"This story, if true, falls upon the crematorium, not my client. My client in no way handled the cremains of Mr. Harry McNeal. My client took the cremains of Mr. McNeal directly from the Stonegate Crematorium and gave them directly to the McNeal Family, after the family services," said Mirabile, who added "My client long ago, decided to discontinue using the Stonegate Crematorium."

If you are concerned about your loved one's ashes, check the death certificate to find out where they were cremated, and then call the crematorium to verify that the ID tag belongs to your loved one.

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