Monty Python couldn’t have made this one up!
An Upstate New York funeral home proprietor is facing imminent criminal charges for allegedly keeping dead human bodies in “advanced states of decomposition” in his business and its detached garage, local officials announced Friday.
According to the Johnstown, N.Y. Police Department, Brian M. Barnett, 35, who owns the since-shuttered Ehle-Barnett Family Funeral Home, is on the cusp of being charged with three counts of concealment of a corpse, a Class E felony; one count of grand larceny, a Class D felony; and additional violations of state health law. According to the police, prosecutors are also planning to file two counts of child endangerment, both misdemeanors, because decaying “bodies . . . were left around with children’s toys in areas where the children [who] were in the residence had access” and presumably played. The police alleged that the toys were near a “decaying body” and therefore caused a “health risk” to the children who lived in the residence. The Albany, N.Y. Times-Union said the children noted were Barnett’s.
The alleged health law violations include one count of operating a funeral home without a license, four counts of operating as a funeral director without a license, and three counts of failing to bury or incinerate a body within a reasonable amount of time after death, according to Johnstown Police Chief David Gilbo.
The charges are pending, Gilbo said Friday morning, because Barnett was at an area hospital — St. Mary’s Hospital and Healthcare Network of nearby Amsterdam, N.Y. — for an “evaluation.” Gilbo did not elaborate on its purpose beyond saying officers had “certain concerns” when asked if Barnett seemed “unfit” or “unwell.”
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