DETROIT – A Detroit man says a voicemail left by a funeral home co-owner suggested she was planning to give him someone else’s cremated remains amid a dispute over access to his late wife’s ashes.
Curtis Robinson said his wife died April 12 from complications of lupus.
Robinson said he and his wife were separated but still legally married, making him her next of kin.
He said he told Butler Funeral Home that his wife’s sons could handle funeral arrangements, but he requested a copy of her death certificate and a portion of her ashes.
“I just told the funeral home that her sons could plan the funeral. I didn’t want to interrupt with them burying their mother, I just wanted the death certificate and some of her ashes,” Robinson said.
Robinson said funeral home co-owner Charita Butler called him last week to arrange a time for him to come in and sign cremation paperwork.
The voicemail began routinely, but then appeared to capture Butler speaking after she believed she had hung up.
In the recording, Butler is heard telling another employee not to mention the ashes again and to give Robinson “somebody else’s ashes” if he kept asking.
“Don’t bring up the ashes again, but if he brings up the ashes or whatever, I’m just gonna give him somebody else’s ashes,” Butler is heard saying on the voicemail. “So we got some ashes back here that need to be disposed of. I’ll just give those to him.”
Robinson said the message caught him completely off guard.
“Very unsettling,” he said. “Kind of made me feel real sad, stressed out, that I couldn’t trust the funeral home with giving me any of my wife’s ashes like I asked for.”
Butler told Local 4 over the phone she was caught in a family dispute and said his wife’s sons did not want Robinson to receive any ashes. Butler said she was trying to keep the peace when she made the remarks.
“I was just really processing, I was throwing stuff out,” Butler said. “Like, if it gets down to it, if he gets ugly, is really what I was thinking, maybe I could do that. I don’t know, but I hadn’t really decided quite honestly.”
Butler said she has not given anyone the wrong remains.
“I haven’t done that,” Butler said. ”I have never done that, and I had not done that. It was just something that, it was just a discussion that was happening.”
Butler said she apologized and offered Robinson the chance to witness the transfer of the ashes into an urn.
Butler said she also bought a small keepsake urn for him.
Robinson said the apology wasn’t enough.
“If they said that to me, how many other people have they done like this or treated like this?” Robinson said.
Local 4 found no similar complaints about Butler Funeral Home, which has an A-plus rating from the Better Business Bureau.
Robinson said he is still waiting for his wife’s ashes and is exploring legal options.