Florida funeral home worker found dead amid reports of body abuse

An employee at a Florida funeral home has been found dead after allegedly being caught sexually abusing a corpse.

Police were alerted to the incident at the Oak Lawn Funeral Home in Pensacola on Tuesday morning, local news station WEAR-TV reported. Another employee had called authorities after stepping into the alleged abuse.

Citing the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, WEAR-TV reported that the suspect had fled the property by the time officers arrived at the funeral home.

Later that morning, police found the suspect’s vehicle at the intersection of North Blue Angel Parkway and Alekai Drive on the western outskirts, about a 10-minute drive from the funeral home.

The sheriff’s office told WEAR the suspect was found dead near the abandoned vehicle with a gunshot wound they believe was self-inflicted. The suspect’s name has not yet been released, nor has the name of the deceased whom they allegedly abused.

in one expressionOak Lawn Funeral Home said: “Out of respect for the privacy and confidentiality of the families … and the privacy of our employees, we are unable to comment on this matter. We will continue to fully cooperate with the sheriff’s office on any investigation.”

Police are now investigating to find out all the details of the incident.

“It’s disturbing; I’m glad my mom wasn’t here,” Tim Brown, a grieving client who finalized his father’s funeral details, told WEAR-TV. “It gives me doubts but I think he’s already been cremated so I think he’s safe.”

news week reached out to the Pensacola Police Department and Escambia County Sheriff’s Office for comment.

According to the National Funeral Directors Association, there were over 18,000 funeral homes in the United States as of April 2022. Reported instances of employee sexual abuse of corpses are relatively rare.

Perhaps the most prolific necrophile in living memory in the United States is Kenneth Douglas, who claimed to have had sex with up to a hundred corpses on night shifts at the Hamilton County, Ohio, morgue between 1976 and 1992.

Douglas was charged and convicted of three counts of gross abuse of a corpse after advances in DNA technology identified sperm found on one of the corpses as belonging to him.

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