Body of Murder Victim Dornell Talbert Mistakenly Cremated

On Monday, we told you about the murder of twenty-six-year-old Dornell Talbert in Scotland Halfmoon Village. But his story did not end with just a homicide. Tonight, his mother is up in arms because her son’s body was wrongfully cremated. Stephanie Talbert travelled to Belize from the U.S today to say her last goodbyes. Her son’s funeral was scheduled for Sunday September fifteenth. When she arrived and reached out to the funeral home she contracted, Munnings Funeral Home, she was informed that Dornell Talbert’s body was cremated on Monday. The circumstances that led to the error, however, are not as clear. There are still questions to be answered. We spoke with the mother about the unfortunate mix-up outside the K.H.M.H. morgue. We also heard from Andrew Munnings, the owner of Munnings Funeral Home. He told us that he is taking full responsibility for the anguish the family is facing.

 

Stephanie Talbert, Mother of Deceased

“I the look for understanding, I the look for answers because I just come back in the country today and I come to bury my son, I the come for a body and now they the tell me they bury my son. We never agree for no cremation. We agree for a body, to do the service with a body. Now, the cremate my son. I font have closure. How will I get closure for my son, when I don’t see him.”

 

Paul Lopez

“Who cremated the body?”

 

Stephanie Talbert

“Some Chico, a guy name Chico take the body Friday and cremate the body without authority from Mr. Munning. He told them that they have a cremation, but it was for a woman. Why would you take a man body go cremate him. How could you mistake a man for a woman, how could you do that? Without authority, you need death certificate, you need the postmortem paper. How could he burn that body? How will I have closure for my son? He said he misunderstood, he only hear cremation and he went and cremate the body. I dah wah strong woman. I ask God for strength daily, I ask him for strength. One thing I could always say about my son. He was not a coward. I did not raise a coward. He died because he lived his life how he was suppose to live his life. He is not a coward. Now they take everything from me. They killed him, I didn’t get to see him not I came to see the body and I wont get to see him. Now I have ashes.”

 

Paul Lopez

“You have some questions to answer today, what went wrong?”

 

Andrew Munnings, Owner, Munnings Funeral Home

“What went wrong, and as I told the family, when I am busy, when we are at a funeral, what happened Monday is that my daughter was sick, so we were out. Levia Funeral Home is our third-party home. If we have to pick up a body from the Boom Medical College after an autopsy, we will call them, and we would pay them two-fifty to move the body from Boom to KHMH. What happened that day, up to this point, I still want a lot of answers from him. But, as I told the family I am not going to put the blame on him, I am not going to throw him underneath the bus, I take full responsibility, simply because you trusted me with your service. We had a cremation on that day, but the daughter of the person we should cremate did not come in, so I called him like nine in the morning and I told him the cremation is cancelled, however we have a body from boom that we must bring to KHMH. Even KHMH we waited after five that evening for the body to return. Up to the morning of the cremation, up to this afternoon, we don’t know anything. When the uncle came into my office this morning for a quotation, everything was normal, it was when I reached out to the morgue and I asked, they said you guys can proceed. But his body is not there. When the guy Chico called me, he is the owner of Levia’s Funeral Home, he is the one that personally went to pick up the body. When he told me he was about to pass for his cremation payment. Which payment, I don’t have any payment for you. When he told me he burnt the young man he picked up form Boom. Literally I felt like I was dreaming. I have never experienced anything like this in my life, because you have heard about it on the news in the past and I have always said to myself, you don’t ever want to go through anything like that. My thing is why I blame myself is simply because you could have a high business ethics, but you must know who you hire to work with, they might not have that same ethics as you. I am not going to push him underneath the bus. I am not going to do that. You guys trust me to take care of your loved one, and honestly, I will never tell the family I understand what you are going through. I don’t. I will not pretend to.”