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A Missouri family says they were traumatized after the funeral for 68-year-old Frederick Dean Love Jr. In a lawsuit filed against Simpson Funeral Home, the family says the issues first started when they arrived at the chapel for the funeral.
One of Love's stepchildren said that his skin "was a bruised purple color" and blamed it on "poor embalming practices."
"Further, certain rods used during tissue donation, which are to be removed after the donation and before presentation of a body during a funerary service, were negligently and recklessly left in the body of the decedent and presented to the family," the lawsuit states. "These rods created an unnatural and rigid appearance to an already poorly handled embalming presentation."
A few days later, Love's wife, son, and stepdaughter went back to the funeral home to collect his ashes. In addition to the urn with Love's ashes, the funeral home also gave them a bag containing some of his personal effects and a cardboard box.
The lawsuit says that the cardboard box had "an extremely pungent chemical smell" and made Love's stepdaughter sick during the six-hour drive.
When they got home, they noticed the box was marked biohazard and left it in their garage for a few days. When the smell didn't dissipate, they tried to find out what was inside the box but didn't want to open it because of the biohazard markings. They brought the box to Baue Funeral Home, which handled Love's embalming, and were told the box contained Love's brain.
"Fred's passing was devastating for the whole family. Fred was a loving husband, father, grandfather, and a multi-decade veteran of the U.S. Army. The acts giving rise to this lawsuit made the experience of his passing all the more difficult. Over a year after the events, we are still wondering how something so shocking could happen," the Love family said in a statement.