An investigation is underway after at least 10 human bodies were found in an un-air-conditioned funeral home in southwest Houston, Houston police confirm.
Police were originally called to Richardson Mortuary on Brookfield Drive around 11:55 a.m. after a funeral home worker stabbed a customer who'd begun filming bodies.
The customer's sister told Eyewitness News she and her brother had gone to the funeral home because they'd grown suspicious about where their mother's and uncle's bodies were being stored.
"I opened up the casket, and she had gnats in her face," Tamara McGruder said.
In videos McGruder captured, some bodies are laying on tables and others are wrapped in plastic or inside caskets.
"It's bodies in caskets, boxes, plastic bags. Its no A/C, its gnats. It smells like rotten blood," she said.
McGruder said an unidentified funeral home worker eventually confronted her brother and ordered the family to leave. When they refused, she said he stabbed her brother in the stomach.
Police described the wound as minor and said the victim was able to drive himself to the hospital.
Since the suspect claimed self-defense, the district attorney declined to press charges for the stabbing.
Richardson Mortuary customers began descending on the business by early afternoon as videos of the bodies circulated on social media.
"I saw a lady in purple in the same suit as my grandmother so I said, Wait a minute, that look like my grand momma," Murita Brown said.
Brown said her grandmother, Bonnie Ashley, was supposed to have been cremated last month.
"This was March the 21st and she was supposed to be cremated already and we been waiting on her ashes and nothing having been happening," Brown said.
Scott Bingaman, executive of the Texas Funeral Service Commission, said his agency was made aware of the videos around 3 p.m. and contacted police.
Bingaman said that it's not uncommon for funeral homes to have bodies laid out on tables and described it as "typical funeral home operations."
He said an inspector was heading to the funeral home to look into reports of non-functioning air-conditioning and insect infestations.
Over the last 10 years, 14 complaints were lodged against the business. Bingaman couldn't say how many were substantiated.
Harris County Precinct 7 Constable Smokie Phillips said he's acquainted with the funeral home's owner and that he's in the hospital after suffering a heart attack.
He said the owner agreed to let other funeral homes remove the bodies to refrigerated rooms at their own businesses.
Attempts to reach the owner have been unsuccessful.
Police say it's possible he could face criminal charges.
"You could look at abuse of corpse, things of that nature, but we'll know more as we go through it," Capt. Jim Dale with the Houston Police Department said.
