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GA funeral home owner charged families thousands for fake cremains: court documents

Chris Lee Johnson (Kristen Kitchens for the AJC/Coffee County Sheriff's Office)

COFFEE COUNTY, Ga. — A grand jury indicted a south Georgia funeral home owner on 62 counts after 18 decomposing bodies were found last year.

The indictment claims that Christopher Lee Johnson sent the families back fake cremains and charged them thousands of dollars.

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On Oct. 26, 2024, deputies in Coffee County went to execute a search warrant at the Johnson Funeral Home in Douglas, Ga. Instead, they found 18 bodies in “various stages of decomposition.”

The sheriff’s office called the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and agents arrested Johnson, who owns the funeral home.

A grand jury indicted him in January on the following charges: 17 counts of abuse to a dead body, 17 counts of abandonment of a dead body, 18 counts of theft by deception, 9 counts of violation of vital records and 1 count of insurance fraud.

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The indictment states that the bodies were taken to the funeral home between Jan. 2024 and Aug. 2024: two in January, two in February, one in March, three in May, five in June, four in July and one in August. The GBI says it has identified all 18 bodies.

Instead of giving the bodies proper burials or cremating them, Johnson sent the families fake cremains and fraudulent death certificates, according to the court documents. He charged the families between $1,000 to $5,000 for the services.

In total, the theft by deception charges totaled more than $35,000. No future court dates have been assigned.

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