A Florida funeral home director, Elliot Maurice Graham, has been accused of grand theft and mishandling after authorities discovered three abandoned bodies at the Jacksonville funeral home. Family members reported receiving cremations that appeared to be made of “ground kitty litter or chalk.”
Graham, 59, was apprehended in Orlando and is currently in custody at the Orange County Jail, awaiting extradition to Jacksonville.
State officials visited Graham’s Marion Graham Mortuaries establishment and found three deceased individuals inside. One of the bodies belonged to Paulina Durden, whose family believed they had already laid her ashes to rest six months prior.
The families described the revelation as “heartbreaking.”
“It was heartbreaking,” Nairobia Durden said. “Just the journey of everything, it’s been tough trying to heal. And just when you think you get to a point where it’s like, it’s starting to feel a little bit better. It’s the wound that’s been reopened.”
In a quirky twist of events, a different family shared their suspicions with WJXT last March. Takenya Sutton and Danielle Streater revealed their concerns that their cousin may have been embalmed improperly, or perhaps not at all. They vividly described the unforgettable stench emanating from their cousin’s body, likening it to that of a decomposed body.
Adding to the peculiar saga, Taslesa Ware recounted how Graham denied her family the opportunity for an open casket wake for her father in November 2022.
To make matters even more bizarre, she revealed that her father’s burial was delayed for days after the funeral because Graham failed to arrange for the grave to be dug at the cemetery.
This guy has definitely bought his ticket to hell.
Very disgusting and disrespectful to not only the family but especially the deceased. I pray he is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for his poor actions.
If he could not afford to properly provide the services the families paid for he should have let them know that perhaps before he took their money or maybe before agreeing to accept and pick them up from the morgue.
Very, VERY cruel of him!!!