by Jeroslyn JoVonn
July 29, 2025
Two funeral houses are going through a lawsuit over the dealing with of a deceased veteran’s stays.
The household of a fallen veteran is suing funeral houses in Philadelphia and Georgia after they got their deceased son’s mind in a cardboard field.
Lawrence and Abbey Butler filed the lawsuit in opposition to Nix & Nix Funeral Houses in Philadelphia and Southern Cremations & Funerals in Georgia, alleging that their son, Timothy Garlington’s, stays have been mishandled after he died in November 2023, Fox 5 Atlanta experiences. Garlington, 56, a Philadelphia native, handed away in Georgia, and his dad and mom organized for his funeral providers to be held in his hometown.
In response to the lawsuit, the Butlers employed Southern Cremations & Funerals in Georgia to arrange and transport Garlington’s physique to Nix & Nix Funeral Houses in Philadelphia on Nov. 20, 2023. After they later obtained their son’s private belongings from Nix, they found a sealed, unmarked field.
The couple stated they unknowingly transported the field of their automobile for days earlier than noticing a foul odor and leaking fluid. Solely after contacting the Georgia funeral house did they study the field contained their son’s mind.
“After a number of days the field began smelling like what they stated loss of life, and once they grabbed the field it was lined in a fluid that obtained throughout them and so they took it within the house and put it on the again porch,” the household’s Legal professional, L. Chris Stewart, stated throughout a July 24 press convention. “Not figuring out what it was, they inquired with Southern Cremations in Georgia, and so they have been knowledgeable that it was their son’s mind.”
The household is suing each funeral houses, accusing them of gross misconduct and emotional misery. Stewart says the grieving dad and mom have been left devastated.
“The household has been destroyed twice,” he stated.
“It was and it’s nonetheless in my coronary heart,” Lawrence Butler stated by tears. “That I obtained in my automobile and I smelled loss of life. I simply, once more, as our legal professional stated, we simply pray that this doesn’t ever occur to anybody else once more. And it’s simply, I needed to do away with that automobile. I simply couldn’t stand the concept that the stays have been in that automobile.”
Nix & Nix Funeral Residence proprietor Julian Nix has cleared his enterprise of any wrongdoing, saying he contacted state officers after discovering the situation of the stays.
“Any physique components ought to be within the physique. I don’t perceive why they might ship his brains in a field, a daily field,” Nix stated. “We instantly reported it to the state board and the medical expert for inspection. When the state board investigated, they stated that we did every little thing appropriate.”
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