Investigator: Infant bodies found at Fort Worth mortuary had melted

The decayed state of the remains found inside the Johnson Family Mortuary last year were difficult to identify, according to testimony Thursday during the theft trial of one of the funeral home’s owners.

One child’s body was located in a casket while another child’s liquified remains were located in a plastic bin, said Steve White, a Tarrant County death investigator who searched the mortuary after police were called there on July 15, 2014.

White said Dondre Johnson, who is facing two counts of felony theft, from $1,500 to $20,000, walked with him through the mortuary and attempted to help identify the bodies that were there. Johnson remembered the names of some of the dead that were stored at the mortuary, but some he could not identify, according to White’s testimony.

Johnson, 41, and his wife, Rachel Hardy-Johnson, 35, are accused of accepting payments to cremate and bury several bodies but failing to deliver those services.

Rachel Hardy-Johnson is in federal prison on unrelated food stamps charges.

The jury was sent home after lunch on Thursday so a judge could rule on a motion asking that state District Judge Elizabeth Beach be removed from the case. Beach admonished one of the defense attorneys for being too boisterous and restricted her access to the lead counsel for the remainder of the trial.

The lead defense attorney, Alexander Kim, argued that Beach was antagonistic toward the defense team. The motion was denied by state District Judge George Gallagher and the jury is scheduled to return on Friday to continue hearing testimony.

A troubling discovery

Identifying the bodies of the two infants found at the mortuary was perhaps the most difficult task, White said. White said he had never before seen infant bodies in the state in which they were found. The high temperatures in the area where the bodies were stored perhaps contributed to their rapid decomposition, he said.

“Since their bones have not developed, the fetal remains are liquid at that point,” White said. “When we opened up the casket, the fetal remains had actually melted into the casket.”

The body found in the casket was that of Malaysia Biscoe, an infant who died Jan. 2, 2013.

The liquified remains of Titus Harrison, who died May 1, 2014, were located in a plastic bin on the floor near the casket where Malaysia was found, White said. A hospital label was affixed to the bin that also contained a baby blanket, White said. Initially, Johnson told him that he did not believe the bin contained a body, White said.

“We were concerned because there was a hospital-type patient label on the bin and a baby blanket near the bin,” White said. “The patient label on the bin stated boy, Desiree Williams. I recognized the blanket as one of those commonly used in neo-natal units and hospitals in the area.”

‘Something just wasn’t right’

Williams testified on Wednesday that Johnson, because they were friends, agreed to cremate her son’s body and allow the family to hold a memorial service at the funeral home for $300. Williams said, however, that it was weeks after her son’s death when she received a box of ashes that Johnson assured her were the remains of her son, but that the seal on the box was broken and the name labeling was torn off.

“Something just wasn’t right,” Williams said.

Weeks after the July 15 discovery at the mortuary, officials with the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office informed Williams that her son’s remains had been at the funeral home since his death.

If convicted of the theft charge, Johnson faces a maximum of two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Johnson, who was arrested on a Dallas County warrant at a pre-trial hearing on Monday, also faces a failure to pay child support charge and is awaiting trial on seven misdemeanor charges of abuse of a corpse.

Rachel Hardy-Johnson, began serving a 21-month federal prison sentence for food stamp benefit fraud in August. She was also also ordered to pay $76,494 in restitution in that case, which is unrelated to charges stemming from her operation of the Johnson Family Mortuary.

This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 11:48 AM with the headline "Investigator: Infant bodies found at Fort Worth mortuary had melted."