Funeral home director arrested after bodies found in garage

A funeral director has been arrested and charged with abuse of a corpse after 3 decomposing bodies were found in her garage. Janet Powell-Dailey, 72, was taken into custody Thursday, according to the Philadelphia Police Department, who were called this summer after a neighbor stumbled upon the bodies while investigating a strong odor. 

Powell-Dailey ran Powell Funeral Home in north Philadelphia and detectives said that the corpses in the adjacent garage were so badly decomposed in the heat that they had hundreds of maggots and one was partly 'liquefying'.

The funeral home, which had been in Powell-Dailey's family for decades, had been operating without a license since 2012. 

It was not know why the facility was allowed to continue operating despite the lack of license and multiple tax claims filed against the business by Philadelphia in recent years.

Bodies of Albert Andrews, 84, who died July 26, and Sally Czarnecki, 86, who died August 13, were in unsealed cardboard cremation boxes.

The body of Leon Nelson, 89, who died August 11, was in an unsealed coffin when the bodies were found on the 25th, according to a suit filed against Powell-Dailey.