Rats, leaking bodily fluid…funeral home company with troubled past fined by state

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A funeral home company with a troubled past is facing yet another fine from state regulators.

The WREG Investigators have long exposed problems at funeral homes and cemeteries run by the company formerly known as StoneMor.

There was the mausoleum in desperate need of repair and another case where rats were eating away at dead bodies. At one of the company’s mausoleums in Jackson, TN, a complaint led to a state inspection that uncovered leaking body fluids.

The latest penalty for the company now called Everstory is related to its finances.

Tennessee’s Funeral Board fined StoneMor/Everstory $40,000. There are four separate $10,000 penalties for four facilities run by the company in the Midsouth.

The civil penalty stems from financial questions that surfaced after state regulators dug into then StoneMor’s federal financial records.

“We examined the financial records that StoneMor/Everstory had to file as a publicly traded company and we discovered, by asking hard questions, doing our due diligence that StoneMor had directed the use of monies that they collected from individuals for preneed funeral trust funds and redirected it, those funds as an investment in a shoe company and that’s the same shoe company where a StoneMor executive also has a financial stake,” explained Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance Spokesperson Kevin Walters.

Walters continued, “Consumers paid their money to StoneMor for preneed funeral trust funds and not as an investment toward a shoe company, and the law specifically says that what Stonemor did is a violation of Tennessee law.”

WREG’s previous investigations uncovered the state had fined StoneMor some $70, 000 as of last year for various violations at its funeral homes and cemeteries.

If you’d like to file a complaint about a funeral home visit tn.gov/commerce.

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