Mortician Loretta Turner

Butler’s Funeral Homes and Crematorium

What type of injuries was stated on the death report?
Dinge had a lot of internal bleeding. There was a fracture of the skull, bleeding within the brain. His facial bones were broken in particular his jawbones and his upper pallet. There was a deep gash on his forehead, which made his skull visible to the naked eye.
I am unable to go into specific details because of the investigation but on the death report, which I received, it stated that he died of hemothorax, trauma due to the accident, lacerations to the liver, amongst other things…

Many persons are under the impression that spikes from the wall caused the gash to his forehead; also, a spike went through his right eye and teeth from his mouth were missing. Is this true?
It is possible that the gash to his forehead resulted from a spike. However, the gash was from the center of his forehead to the leftmost corner of his right eye and the orbital of the right eye was damaged. Teeth from his mouth were missing.

I have encountered many situations of this nature. At first, there was just going to be a cremation and not a service or a viewing of the body. However, the family later changed their mind so that they will be able to see him for the last time. We had to reconstruct his entire jawbone, stitch the gash to his forehead, and align his nose. His face was the only external structure we had to rectify. Dinge was quite lucky in which the nature of the incident could of resulted in more external and internal injuries.

There was a two-week interval from the day of his death and the actual funeral service. I chose not to cover-up all of his bruises on his face because that would of made him appear “more dead.”

When viewing his body up close, there was an odd visible “bulge of skin” running down the right side of his neck by his ears. What was the cause of this?

The pathologist at the morgue had to do an autopsy to the head because of the nature of the incident. There was an incision from the base of the neck to the top of his head where the brain was removed for examination. The stitching may have caused this occurrence.

After the funeral service, we brought him back here. A few of his friends helped bring his casket back into the funeral home where they saw him and hugged him for the last time. We then removed Dinge from the casket and placed him in a cardboard box where he remained for the rest of the night due to the time. The next day, we placed him in the crematory, which is like a “big brick oven” with a metal door. He was in the 1800-degree oven for three hours. His bodily flesh turned into water and his skeletal remains was placed in a structure similar to a blender where the skeleton was crushed into small and fine pieces. After this, his remain weighed 8 pounds and was placed in an urn.