Funeral home mix-up prompts investigation

Molly Ball

Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004 | 11:06 a.m.

Two bodies were switched at a North Las Vegas funeral home last fall, causing the wrong man to be cremated and the wrong ashes to be given to a California widow, Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy said Wednesday.

The state Department of Public Safety is investigating the mix-up to see whether wrongdoing was involved.

Las Vegas resident Steven Erwin, 55, died on Aug. 11, 2003, of heart failure at Sunrise Hospital, according to his death certificate. John Stevens, 58, of Needles, Calif., died Oct. 5 at Integrated Health Services, also of heart failure.

Stevens was to be cremated and his ashes given to his widow. Erwin, who had no living relatives, was to be buried in the Boulder City veterans' cemetery. But last week coroner's office workers, acting on a tip, exhumed the grave with Erwin's name on it and found a body they identified as that of Stevens.

Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy immediately drove to Bishop, Calif., to tell Stevens' widow that the ashes in her possession were not those of her husband -- "to advise her that I in fact had her husband at my office, and he had been positively identified," as Murphy put it.

The ashes the widow has are thought to be Erwin's. They have not been tested, but investigators are reasonably certain, based on their information, that there was a one-to-one switch, Murphy said.

"We feel confident that we have the right folks in the right places," he said.

According to records, the two men's bodies were at Harrison Ross Mortuary at the same time, even though their deaths were almost two months apart. That's because Erwin was in the hands of county Social Services, which can take up to 90 days to determine if a deceased person has living relatives.

Murphy said it is not known when the burial and cremation of the two men occurred.

At issue is whether the mix-up was an innocent mistake or whether the funeral home knew and failed to do anything about it, in which case the company could be guilty of fraud.

Harrison Ross Mortuary is part of a Los Angeles-based chain.

"This is hitting us from left field," said Chip Smith, a manager for the company.

He said the company was never informed of the alleged mix-up or that an investigation was under way. The company is looking into the matter, and company President William Smith plans to travel to Las Vegas soon, Chip Smith said.

The funeral director at the time of the switch was fired late last year for insubordination, Smith said. She was an unsatisfactory employee, but she wasn't deceitful, he said.

The former manager could not be located for comment.

In the approximately five years that the North Las Vegas location has been operating, yearly inspections have not noted any violations and no complaints against it have been filed, said Diane Shaffer, executive secretary of the state Funeral Board.

No complaint has yet been filed with the state board in this case. If a complaint were filed and violations were found, licenses for the establishment, its funeral director or its embalmer could be revoked, Shaffer said.

According to the Web site of the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau of the California Department of Consumer Affairs, licenses are in order for all four of the company's Southern California locations. The licenses for the family-owned business go back as far as 1930.

The coroner's office turned the case over to the state for investigation on Tuesday, Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Kim Evans said. Officers there cannot recall any investigation into a funeral home in the past 10 years, she said.

To make things right, the widow has requested that her husband's newly discovered body be cremated. Murphy said he will supervise the cremation on Friday and return the remains to the woman as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, a military service will be held -- again -- to inter the remains of Steven Erwin in Boulder City.

Murphy said the coroner's office was taking the matter extremely seriously.

"When people bury their loved ones, they assume they're going to be there forever," he said.