A grieving mother is suing a funeral home and a cremation service over the horrific scene she found when she went to collect her stillborn baby’s blanket and ashes.
Aurora Hartley of Oklahoma was devastated when she went into premature labor on November 27, 2023 at 27 weeks, and her baby, Hadley, was stillborn. News 9 reports.
In her grief, she turned her son’s remains over to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Oklahoma City for an autopsy, which in turn sent Hadley’s remains to Alpha and Omega Mortuary for cremation.
But when Hartley went to pick up her baby’s ashes and the hospital birth blanket at Brown’s Funeral Service in Coalgate, she was shocked to discover her son’s remains still in the blanket, her lawyers say.
“As they were taking the birthing blanket to wash and preserve it, they opened it up and found the remains of the child,” attorney John Zelbst told the local news station.
Aurora Hartley of Oklahoma is suing Brown’s Funeral Home and Alpha and Omega Mortuary for apparently failing to cremate her dead son.
When Hartley went to pick up her baby’s ashes and the hospital birth blanket at Brown’s Funeral Service in Coalgate, she was shocked to discover her son’s remains still in the blanket, her lawyers say.
“You can only imagine the shock and disgust.”
She said Hartley, her boyfriend and her family later returned to Brown’s Funeral Service to get more information about how such a mistake could have happened.
“We have an urn with ashes that nobody knows who they belong to,” Zelbst said. “It’s not our client’s baby. What family misses their loved one?”
The attorney went on to say that the funeral home told local police that the ashes were from Hartley’s cremated placenta and not the child’s remains.
“They gave the excuse that it was the placenta, which had no characteristics of a cremation,” Zelbst argued. “So that’s where the cover-up begins.”
He said he is now taking legal action against the funeral home and morgue to ensure no other family has to suffer such horrors.
“We’re going to let the citizens of this community decide what justice should really be,” he said, while Hartley’s other attorney, Dan Markoff, said he’s waiting for the state board to step in and shut down one or both of the funeral service providers.
Funeral home employees reportedly told local police that the ashes were from Hartley’s cremated placenta and not the child’s remains.
The U.S. Department of Labor had investigated the operator of Alpha and Omega Mortuary Services and Crematory in April for violations of federal labor laws.
He found that the funeral home, operated by Stillwell Ltd, Inc, deprived employees of overtime pay for work they completed more than 40 hours in a single week and failed to keep adequate records, as required by federal law.
“I was working 60 to 80 hours a week, with no days off,” said former funeral home employer Crystal Moeai He told KFOR amid the investigation‘Many times the longest shift I worked was 27 hours.’
Mark Monterroso added that sometimes they worked “a couple of days” in a row and had to “take a nap here and there because they work during the night.”
In the end, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division recovered $231,390 in back wages and an equal amount in damages for Stillwell’s 66 employees.
Hartley said she was devastated by the mistake and said she had always wanted to be a mother.
She is now seeking mental health treatment as she deals with the loss of her son and the traumatic turmoil that followed.
“By denying its employees their hard-earned wages, Alpha and Omega Mortuary Service and Crematory violated the law and harmed the people the company relies on to work long hours to provide an important service to the community in exchange for low wages,” Wage and Hour Division District Director Michael Speer said at the time.
‘We are committed to protecting workers and providing clear and confidential compliance assistance to any employee or employer who has questions.’
It’s unclear whether the long hours may have contributed to the mix-up with Hartley’s baby.
But she says she is now seeking help for her mental health after losing the baby and the traumatic experience, noting that she had always wanted to be a mother.
DailyMail.com has contacted Brown’s Funeral Service and Alpha and Omega Mortuary for comment.
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