Main: Aurora Hartley discusses the shock of retrieving her stillborn child’s birthing blanket only to find the remains of a child still in the blanket. Inset: The birthing blanket and hospital bracelet for Hadley Hartley is show. (Screengrabs via KWTV)
An Oklahoma woman is taking legal action against a local funeral home after she says the retrieval of her stillborn baby’s remains went horribly wrong.
Aurora Hartley said she was excited to become a mother, but that she was devastated when she went into preterm labor at 27 weeks in November of 2023. Hartley delivered a stillborn child, Hadley, and after the birth, turned Hadley’s body over to the Medical Examiner’s office in Oklahoma City so that an autopsy could be performed.
According to Hartley’s lawyers, Hadley’s body was then sent by the Medical Examiner’s office to Alpha and Omega Mortuary to be cremated. Hartley then picked up what she thought were Hadley’s cremated remains and hospital birthing blanket at Brown’s Funeral Service in Coalgate, Oklahoma.
According to John Zelbst, Hartley’s attorney, his client opened the birthing blanket and found the remains of the child, Oklahoma City CBS affiliate KWTV reported.
“You can only imagine the shock and disgust,” the lawyer told local news.
Zelbst said the family returned to Brown’s Funeral Service for more information only to find that they received an urn with an unknown person’s ashes — not the remains of their child.
“We have an urn with ashes that no one knows who they belong to,” Zelbst said. “It’s not our clients’ baby. So what family is missing their loved one?”
Zelbst said that the funeral home told Coalgate police that the ashes were not Hadley’s remains, but that they were ashes of a cremated placenta.
“They give this excuse that it’s the placenta, which is not a placenta. It has no characteristics of a cremation,” said Zelbst, according to KWTV. “So that starts the cover-up.”
Dan Markoff, another attorney representing Hartley, said he is waiting for the state board to step in and shut down one or both of the funeral service providers.
In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) investigated the operator of Alpha & Omega Mortuary Service and Crematory for violations of federal employment laws. The mortuary is operated by Stillwell Limited, Inc. The DOL said in a statement that Stillwell deprived its employees of overtime rate for time over 40 hours worked in a single week. The company also failed to keep proper records, as is required under federal law.
The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division recovered $231,390 in back wages and an equal amount in damages for Stillwell’s 66 employees.
“By denying their employees all of their hard-earned wages, Alpha and Omega Mortuary Service and Crematory violated the law and harmed the people on whom the company depends to work long hours to provide an important service to the community in return for low wages,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Michael Speer in Oklahoma City in a statement in April. “We are committed to protecting workers and providing clear and confidential compliance assistance to any employee or employer with questions.”
Brown’s Funeral Service did not respond to request for comment. Stillwell Limited, Inc. could not be reached for comment.
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