Funeral Home Didn't Embalm Body, South Jersey Family Claims

A South Jersey woman who was unable to give her late brother a proper goodbye is now suing the funeral home that handled the services. Ashkeya Pratt-Williams, of Williamstown, is suing Carl Miller Funeral Home because she alleges the funeral home kept the body of John Ross Pratt in a garage where there was no cooling system.

She says the Camden-based funeral home failed to embalm the body as instructed, allowing it to begin to decompose and develop an odor. As a result, she had to cremate the body and hold a closed-casket funeral, according to the lawsuit filed in Camden Superior Court.

A representative from the funeral home wasn’t immediately available for comment Friday morning. A spokesperson for the funeral home defended its reputation to CBS 3 and called the allegations “shocking.”

Pratt died of natural causes on Sept. 17, 2018. According to the suit, Pratt-Williams contacted the funeral home the same day and signed a contract for it to handle the services. She met with them in person two days later, at which time she asked to see her brother’s body. Funeral home representatives told her there was no one there to show her the body, and that she should come back the next day.

However, the next day, Carl Miller Funeral Home Manager Pamela Miller Dabney contacted Pratt-Williams to tell her there was a “problem,” according to the lawsuit. This is when Pratt-Williams learned her brother’s body had not been embalmed as requested and that it had been stored in a garage.

Dabney then recommended cremating Pratt and having a closed casket funeral so “no one would know if anything was inside.” The embalming process began on Sept. 20, according to the lawsuit.

Pratt-Williams had her brother cremated and wasn’t able to have the funeral she wanted. The funeral was ultimately held at Bell-Hennessy Funeral Homein Williamstown on Sept. 29, according to an online obituary.

The obituary describes Pratt as the “beloved son of the late John Pratt and of the late Dorothy Williams. Dear brother of Ashkeya Pratt-Williams. Loving uncle of Chardonai and Paul. He is also survived by many loving family members and friends."

Pratt’s cousin Jeri Vaughn McBride went on Facebook to tell everyone to “never use Carl Miller,” saying “they didn’t do their job” and they “dropped the ball,” in an emotional Facebook Live video that was shot outside the funeral home.

“My cousin cannot see her brother for a last time,” McBride said. “They have robbed her completely of final goodbyes with her brother. … My 91-year-old grandmother doesn’t get to say goodbye to her grandson. Thank you, Carl Miller Funeral Home. Thank you for the negligence, thank you for robbing our family.”

Pratt-Williams is suing for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract and two counts of consumer fraud. The funeral home, owner Gloria Hunt Miller, Dabney, directors Alexis Combs, Robert Marvin, Felicia Beverly, Rasheeda Ali, Thomas Allison and unnamed co-conspirators are named in the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.

The attached image of John Ross Pratt was posted with his online obituary at Bell-Hennessy Funeral Home.