Detroit • The stench of decomposing flesh pulsed from a funeral home into a Michigan neighborhood as maggots wriggled along the garage floor near cardboard-boxed corpses stacked along walls.
The dead can’t complain, but on occasion — through rot — they scream for judgment against the living entrusted with prompt and solemn cremation or burial. Of 10 bodies found in the unrefrigerated garage at Swanson Funeral Home in Flint last year, one was not embalmed and had been there about six weeks. The Michigan attorney general filed complaints against the business, but it remained open until July — after inspectors again found bodies in the unrefrigerated garage.