A California couple says they never saw their baby’s remains again after sending her body to a funeral home for cremation last summer.
Jamahl and Shavonne Morton said they wanted to get a last look at their stillborn daughter to honor her. They had used the Akes Family Funeral Home in California nine years ago when they cremated their first daughter and were able to view her body then.
“But this time, it was like excuses,” Shavonne Morton told The Insider.
The couple called the funeral home for weeks upon end. Eventually, someone called back and told the Mortons that Jamila’s body had started to decompose and they wouldn’t want to see her in that state. However, Shavonne said she had learned early on that her baby didn’t have a heartbeat, and she chose to push out the body in June 2021 so that her two sons could also say goodbye to the baby they bonded with in her stomach for 22 weeks.
“I went through the whole labor and delivery so I could have her intact,” the mom said. “I thought, ‘I can’t have her dismembered.'”
They had already paid for the cremation in full. Shavonne Morton told the Insider she wanted to scatter Jamila’s ashes over the ocean. Her husband thought about keeping them, and they also considered holding a memorial service.
“That was our last closure, and so I felt robbed of that,” she said.
The funeral home told the family they would reach out when the cremation was completed, but the Mortons said they never heard from them. Finally, after numerous calls went answered, Jamahl Morton decided to go in person.
When he arrived at Akes’ location in Corona, California, staff told him the remains were at its location in Riverside, California. At Riverside, he learned the mortuary had burned down in November, five months after Jamila’s body was transferred there.
According to arson investigators, the fire was caused by “faulty wiring.” Reports show multiple electronic devices were plugged into an outlet that “was completely burned through.”
“The wiring entering and leaving the outlet had burned through the insulation and had bare wiring exposed,” investigators wrote.
Jamahl said staff at the Riverside told him the bodies were safe and someone would contact them. The incident report shows that first responders had to remove bodies from the building while fighting the fire.
The Mortons have not heard from the funeral home since, and they’ve now hired a lawyer.
“This is so crazy. Now you’re telling me they have a fire, so now I’m not sure if something happened to her remains,” Shavonne Morton said. “I don’t know what to think.”
Akes told the family’s attorney that the body had been cremated last August.
“I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know if that’s my daughter. It’s been so long,” Shavonne Morton said. “We’re just going off of what they said. But I’m just like, ‘So how do I know that’s her remains?’ It’s just sketchy. I don’t know. I just feel like something’s just off.”
