Body left in hearse 9 days

A body's journey in the back of a hearse is grim but usually brief.

That was not the case, though, for Linda Walton.

On Friday, nine days after a mortuary service picked up Walton's corpse from an apartment in Carrboro, police were called to investigate a foul odor in downtown Graham, a small Alamance County town about 55 miles west of Raleigh.

Investigators traced the pungent smell to a hearse owned by David B. Lawson Mortuary, the undertaker that picked up Walton's body Aug. 11. Walton, 37, who investigators think died about a week before she was discovered, was still in the back of the undertaker's vehicle.

The gruesome find set off an investigation by police and the Alamance County district attorney's office. Their findings have sparked an inquiry by the N.C. Board of Funeral Service, which is responsible for the administration and regulation of the profession of funeral service in North Carolina.

Police do not suspect foul play in Walton's death. But investigators had not determined whether Lawson, the owner of the mortuary service that had her body, had run afoul of the law.

Lawson, a licensed funeral director and embalmer in North Carolina for 34 years, did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.

Over the past decade, the state Board of Funeral Service has investigated several complaints against Lawson, but they centered on problems with his failure to turn in timely annual reports about "pre-need contracts" through which people can make arrangements with funeral homes in advance of their deaths.

Lawson was disciplined for his mistakes, according to state board records, and in 2008 surrendered his license that permitted him to enter into pre-need contracts.

Paul Harris, executive director of the state funeral board, said he did not know of any complaints similar to the one that came to their office Saturday about the decomposing corpse in the back of the hearse. He declined to discuss the case, other than to say the board would investigate.

Capt. Joel Booker of the Carrboro police department said Lawson's was called after investigators couldn't find Walton's next of kin. Police believed that she had died of natural causes so there would be no autopsy ordered by the state medical examiner.

'Not a problem'

Lawson's, Booker said, was on a list of mortuaries that would pick up bodies. Carrboro investigators said when Lawson's showed up at the apartment in western Carrboro, investigators told the driver that they were having difficulty finding Walton's family.

"What the investigators told me is Lawson's said, 'Not a problem. We'll put her in deep-freeze,' " Booker said. "So off they go, and that's the last we know of it until we heard from Graham police last week."

It was unclear whether Lawson's had a refrigerated unit for storing bodies.

The most recent visit to Lawson's facilities in Graham by state investigators was in 2004, according to Harris, and there would have been no reason for them to note whether the mortuary service had a refrigerated unit.

"They're not required to have a refrigerated unit by law," Harris said.

In North Carolina, when a body goes unclaimed for 10 days, a mortuary director is required to contact the N.C. Commission of Anatomy, which finds cadavers for the medical and mortuary schools in North Carolina. If the commission does not want the body, then the mortuary director is required to contact the head of county social services for authorization to cremate the body.

It was unclear whether Lawson had made either of those calls.

Recently, Harris said, mortuary directors and county social service agencies are seeing an increase in unclaimed bodies. Occasionally, after county-supported cremations occur, bodies are claimed by family members.

It is rare, Harris said, to hear about bodies being left in hearses.

"I would say it's an isolated incident," Harris said.

NC woman's unclaimed body left in hearse 9 days

GRAHAM, N.C. Police and North Carolina regulators are investigating why a woman's body was left in a hearse for nine days.

Police found the body of Linda Walton last week after they were asked to investigate a foul odor in the city of Graham, about 32 miles west of Durham.

The 37-year-old died earlier this month in her apartment and police were unable to locate her next of kin. They called David B. Lawson Mortuary to pick up the body.

Lawson has been a licensed funeral director for more than 30 years and is part of a rotation of funeral homes used by police. He refused to talk about the case early Wednesday.

The funeral service's disciplinary committee meets next week to discuss the complaint