Detroit police investigate baby corpses found at second funeral home

Detroit Police Chief James Craig announced a “wide probe” into Michigan funeral homes Friday, after hidden caches of baby corpses were allegedly discovered at two unrelated businesses inside a week.

“This is deeply disturbing,” Craig said at a news conference, hours after police raided Perry Funeral Home and allegedly seized 63 fetus or infant bodies, more than half of which were packed together in unrefrigerated boxes. “We want to understand the reasons: Is it financial gain? If so, how? Who knew or who else is involved in this?”

The raid came a week after an anonymous letter led investigators to an abandoned funeral home on the other side of central Detroit, where they allegedly found nearly a ?dozen infant corpses hidden in a ceiling.

“I would like to look at you and tell you I hope …that this is isolated to these two. I can’t say that with certainty,” Craig told reporters, shortly after leaving a meeting with FBI and state investigators. “This is much larger than we might know.”

The police chief gave few details about the investigation, and declined to speculate as to what would motivate someone to keep tiny, desiccated corpses long after they were supposed to have been interred. All the same, he described how the case escalated rapidly from a single, anonymous tip into a full-blown investigative task force that could now probe business throughout the state.

The case began last week at Cantrell Funeral Home in east Detroit, which had been shuttered since the spring over accusations that adult corpses had been improperly stored to the point of growing mold.

An unsigned letter received on Oct. 12 urged investigators to return to the business and search it. The note led them to what police described as a hidden compartment in a ceiling - containing a casket, cardboard boxes and several trash bags packed with 11 dead infants.

Police opened a criminal investigation into the matter this week. Investigators then got a second tip, leading them to a second funeral home.

“A parent saw the story” about Cantrell in the news, Craig told reporters. “He told his attorney he wanted to go to the police.”

Perry Funeral Home had its license revoked immediately after the raid. While a criminal investigation is underway, no one has been reported arrested in either case.

The police chief, Craig, said a task force of local and state police, FBI advisers and other investigators has been assembled to look for any possible connection between the two funeral homes.