Woman Finds Debris Mixed In With Father’s Cremated Remains

Long Island, New York

A Long Island woman found more than she bargained for while attempting to scatter the cremated remains of her father.

Jennie Spooner, of Amityville, had planned on giving her father the send-off he deserved. She dusted some of his ashes on a dinosaur in the Museum of Natural History, attached some to the tail of a kite and spilled some on the water at Canaan Lake as her dad wanted, reports The New York Post.

Before she could continue spreading her father’s ashes at his favorite haunts throughout the city, Spooner discovered debris mixed in with the cremated remains. The debris included:

• Pieces of Bone
• Pieces of a broom
• Glass shards
• Metal staples
• Partially melted crucifix

The 52-year-old Spooner, upon finding the trash, immediately called Joseph Slinger-Hasgill Funeral Home to complain, but the director blamed the crematorium. Spooner was horrified.

“My heart was pounding. I said, ‘What the heck is that? A spring? It flipped me out,” said Spooner, whose father died eight months ago from pneumonia and an infection. He was 79.

Spooner hired an attorney and is considering a lawsuit against the funeral and the crematorium.

Both the funeral home and the crematorium have declined comment.

Illinois Funeral Director Marcee Dane Convicted of Desecration of Remains and Cremation Cover-Up

Marcee Dane

Chicago, Illinois

A funeral director accused of giving bereaved families the wrong cremated remains has pleaded guilty in a cover-up of the fraud and is expected to spend months behind bars.

Marcee Dane, 32, of Libertyville pleaded guilty to desecration of human remains, a violation of the Cemetery Protection Act and a Class 3 felony, a release from the Lake County State’s Attorney’s office said.

Prosecutors said Dane tried to cover up a mix-up involving a family’s ashes by first lying to the family, then getting another person’s remains and sending the family those remains to cover the mistake.

Dane even went so far as to exhume cremains and remove an identification tag in case either family discovered the error and chose to exhume the cremains, authorities said.

Marcee Dane was a funeral director at Burnett Dane Funeral Home in Libertyville, where the scandal occurred.