Lisa Rogers
Gadsden Times

Staff Writer

Published: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:02 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:03 a.m.

A Gadsden funeral home owner has been charged with abuse of a corpse after a decomposing body was found in the back of a hearse Tuesday night.

Harold Watson, Sr., 76, owner of Watson and Sons Funeral Home was taken into custody Tuesday night and charged this morning with the felony, Gadsden Police Sgt. Mark Henderson said.

Forensic tests are expected to confirm the identity of the body found in the back of Watson’s hearse, parked on his property with several other junk vehicles in a lot of East Broad Street.

The body is believed to be that of a 52-year-old woman who died of natural causes on Nov. 13, 2007, Etowah County Coroner Michael Gladden said.

Gadsden police officers were called to investigate a suspicious odor coming from the hearse just before 5 p.m. The parking lot is about a block from the intersection of Hood Avenue and East Broad Street and a couple of miles from Watson’s Funeral Home on West Meighan Boulevard.

The body was in a shipping container, common in the funeral industry, he said. A death certificate for the woman states she was cremated on Nov. 20, 2007.

After the woman’s death, her family requested that she be cremated, but never signed a form authorizing Watson to have her cremated, and did not pay, Henderson said. Watson kept her body at the funeral home at the intersection of Sixth Street and West Meighan Boulevard.

“They were supposed to come back but never did,” Henderson said. “He just kept her there, thinking they might.”

Henderson said Watson told police that the odor became so bad a few weeks ago that he decided to move the body to another location.

“He put her in the hearse and took it over to this property,” Henderson said.

The hearse was parked against an abandoned building.

After someone noticed the odor coming from the hearse, they saw the shipping box and called police.

"If this who we think it is, we know why she died," Gladden said. "If it's not her, then we'll have an autopsy."

The woman's body will be transported to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences lab in Huntsville today for tests to determine her identity.