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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Allegations that the owner of a Jackson crematorium dumped the bones and ashes from numerous bodies into a barrel and returned the wrong remains has devastated families and prompted demands for an investigation.

“May God have mercy on him because I won’t,” said Tammie Holley, an attorney from New Orleans who said her stepsister was cremated in 2006 at Seepe Funeral Home and Crematorium.

Lori Wilkinson, a former employee of the facility, said she was horrified to see owner Mark Seepe shoveling bones onto a wheelbarrow after cremations, then dumping the load in a yellow 55-gallon drum. She took pictures of the open drum on March 17, then quit her job and contacted authorities.

Seepe did not respond to a message left Thursday by The Associated Press. He has denied the allegations.

Wilkinson took more than a dozen photographs after repairmen working on the crematorium discovered that bones had spilled from the retort, which collects the ashes.

“They said they couldn’t do anything until he removed the bones,” Wilkinson said. “(Seepe) left and went and got a wheelbarrow and dumped them in this 55-gallon drum like it was nothing.”

Wilkinson contacted the Mississippi State Board of Funeral Service. Other employees of the crematorium soon came forward with similarly disturbing stories.

Charles Riles, the funeral board’s chairman, said the photographs clearly show bones that were mixed with the remains of at least several others. He said a proper cremation would leave no large bones.

“The number of these bones would not be from one or two human remains, they would be from more,” Riles said after reviewing the pictures. “Of course, I can’t tell you how many more because I have no idea.”

Riles also said that Josh Hatten, a former employee of the crematorium, filed a complaint in November, claiming that Seepe gave remains to a family before their relative had even been cremated. The family of the late Edwin Van Every is suing for $5 million.

The allegations have raised deep concerns of families in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South who used the crematorium and who are left wondering if the ashes they were given belong to their loved ones.

“You just don’t think that this is going to happen to you. He got my sister’s body. I was supposed to get my sister’s ashes back,” said Colette Bryant, whose sister, Marian Connell, was cremated in November 2006. “I don’t know that I’ve got my sister’s ashes. I might have cats and dogs and Joe Blow’s ashes for all I know.”

Unfortunately, DNA is likely destroyed even during a botched cremation so there is little hope that the families will ever know for certain if they got the proper remains, Riles said. The funeral board has fielded 50-75 calls a day from people since Wilkinson came forward with her photographs earlier this week.

“When I look at these bones I see people, I don’t see bones. The questions I ask are, ’Who are these people? Why are they there? And what was to have been their final destination?”’ Riles said. “People call and ask me terribly poignant questions: ’Is this my baby? Is this my child? Is this my family member?’ And the answer to that is, ’We cannot positively tell you, but we pray so.”’

Riles is urging Attorney General Jim Hood to investigate. Hood won’t say whether he will.

“Needless to say, these are very significant allegations that we do not take lightly,” Hood said in a statement. “At present it is our policy to neither confirm nor deny an investigation, but any matter brought to the attention of this office is always taken with the utmost seriousness.”

Civil lawsuits are likely to follow.

Attorney Kelly Kyle is advertising in The Clarion-Ledger, the state’s largest newspaper, for people to call him if they used the crematorium. He said he hopes to file at least one lawsuit by next week at which time he’ll file for discovery.

Asked if he has taken many calls about the crematorium, Kyle said, “that’s about all I’ve done for the last two days.”

Holley, the New Orleans attorney whose stepsister was cremated at Seepe’s facility, says she’s planning to sue as well.

March 14, 2008

WJLA

Mississippi plaintiffs attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy in a judicial bribery case.The surprise plea came Friday during a hearing in Oxford, Miss. on pretrial matters. His trial was set to begin at the end of the month. Scruggs and co-defendant Sidney Backstrom both pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a judge. Scruggs’ son, Zach, also is charged in the case but has not entered a plea.

The three were accused of conspiring to bribe a Lafayette County Circuit Court judge for a favorable ruling in a dispute over $26.5 million in legal fees from a mass settlement of Hurricane Katrina cases.

Scruggs is a brother-in-law of Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott and has made millions from tobacco and asbestos litigation.

In much the same way that a bad marriage is not healthy if one partner is in it for what they can get out of it, and the other is co-dependent on that partner. Illegal immigration is unhealthy for the co-dependent country involved.

Almost daily we hear how our crashing economy is causing an exodus of illegals returning to their homelands when the work, money, and handouts runs out. Many of these are represented in the media as hardship stories built to display the “poor undocumented worker”, “poor businesses”, and in some cases “poor community” who are being affected by the loss. While no one can dispute the effect this loss has on those elements, they are in essence, no different then those who are co-dependent marriage partners who suddenly find themselves struggling to learn to survive.

What needs to be understood, and understood firmly, is that illegal immigrants are not here “for better or for worse”. They will not hang around when this country struggles. They will not hang around if the country falls. Their loyalty is not to this country at all and they will return home to the place their loyalty lies, or move on to another country that has what they desire. In this case money, work, and someone to take care of them.

American citizens and many legal immigrants have a deep loyalty to the United States. No matter how hard it gets in the nation, they will hold on, they will struggle through, and they will work to improve the situation of the home they love unconditionally. “For better or for worse” is not even a thought for them, it’s a way of life.

Just as one would not support a loved on, or friend in an unhealthy relationship. America needs to not support this unhealthy relationship that’s been created by illegal immigrants and their advocates. Americans need to support and advocate for healthy relationships with Citizens and legal immigrants who had a deep unseated love for this country. Who will stick with her through thick and thin, no matter how thin it gets. It is that, and that alone that makes for a healthy relationship and a healthy nation.
As for the “woe is me” tales, well just like the co-dependent partner learns to live again. These co-dependent individuals, businesses, and communities will also learn to live again. In many cases they will learn to be stronger, stabler, and healthier then before when they were in the unhealthy relationship. In some cases they might not ever break the bonds of co-dependency but above all they will learn what the signs of co-dependency are and be able to advocate against it, while helping awake other co-dependents to be able to survive the “life without” too.

Hispanic exodus is under way
Workers leave Lee as jobs disappear
The News Press
March 9, 2008

In this case, cold, hard statistics don’t tell the story.

“I am not aware of anyone who would track that locally,” said Glen Solier, business development specialist for the Lee County Department of Economic Development.

“Those people are off the grid. Undocumented,” said Susanna Patterson, economic analyst for the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.

But the oh-so-human snapshots of everyday living are revealing.

Like a weekend soccer league down from 32 teams to 25 because more than 100 players have had to leave.

Or a church that has cut two Sunday services to one because about 200 former members have returned to their homeland.

Or the western-wear clothier who gave up one of his three shopping center units and said business is off by 40 percent because customers are gone.

Put these and other pictures together and the collage tells the story of Hispanics who are leaving Southwest Florida to find work or to return to the support of their families back home.

“There is a loss in the number of Hispanics in our communities,” said Robert Selle, director of the Amigos Center, which aids Hispanics with immigration issues and offers other services in Lee County. “The underlying reason is economic; the same reason they came here in the first place.”

Population drain

The loss comes from a good portion of Lee County’s population. The U.S. Census Bureau listed the county’s Hispanic population at more than 90,000 - about 16 percent of Lee’s 571,000 population - in 2006.

What the statistics further show is that work is gone. Unemployment in the Fort Myers-Cape Coral region has risen this past year, from 2.7 percent to 6.3 percent.

Many of the lost jobs are in construction, which has been put on hold as the sluggish market struggles with a glut of unsold houses.

Because many Hispanic construction workers are believed to be illegal immigrants, because construction and agricultural workers are a mobile population anyway, because many are single with families back in their native lands, and because their leaving was often spur-of-the-moment, no governmental or social service agency is keeping accurate records of this exodus.

Lee County School District reported a loss of Hispanics in all grades totaling 388 pupils through January of this school year - this after growing by almost 3,000 Hispanic students a year earlier.

But the white student population dropped as well. The big difference was while dropout rates tend to increase as the year goes on in the upper grades, the Hispanic population was the only one also to lose ground in the kindergarten through fifth-grade range. It fell by 87 pupils - an indication their families moved from the district, according to Michael Smith, director of planning, growth and school capacity.

“Many workers in the construction industry and related industry are leaving the area and following the money,” said Barbara Hartman, spokeswoman for the state’s Career and Service Center in Fort Myers. “It seems to be an increasing number of people who are temporarily relocating. I wish we did track that.”

Hartman said she knows people are leaving because they tell counselors when they come in seeking work, saying they need the higher construction industry wages, which begin at $10 to $11 an hour for the most unskilled, to maintain their standard of living……..

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