Evicted Funeral Home Left Dead Bodies Behind

At the start of the foreclosure crisis, struggling consumers got into the trend of trashing their houses. People poured paint on the carpet, let their animals defecate indoors and punched holes in the walls as a sort of retaliation for the banks taking their homes away.

In Fort Worth, Texas, a recently evicted business left behind a different kind of mess: Dead bodies.

The owner of a building that used to house a funeral home went to the building and found eight bodies, including that of a baby. The Fort Worth Police Department called in its homicide unit to investigate, CBS Dallas-Forth Worth reports.

Two weeks prior to the discovery, the tenant, Johnson Family Mortuary, received an eviction notice, though it is unclear why the building owner ousted the business in the first place. The report didn’t specify the condition in which the bodies were found, merely that there were “multiple unattended deceased persons in the building.” When asked about it, one of the owners Dondre’ Johnson said no bodies were purposely left behind and the ones recovered by the police “were already in a casket; already had a funeral.”

Details of the business’ eviction were not explained in the news coverage, but landlords can boot a tenant if the tenant violates the lease, including failure to pay rent.

Trashing a foreclosure is illegal, and you’ll likely get charged for damaging a rental home, too. The landlord may bill you for the costs of clean up and repairs (or, in this case, body removal), and if you fail to pay, that bill will likely be sent to a debt collector. Both the eviction and the collection account may make it difficult for you to rent another property. Credit standing is also crucial to finding a place to live (collections hurt your credit), so if you’re looking to rent a home or workspace, make sure your credit is in good shape when you submit an application.