In today’s video, we travel to the deep south where we explore an old abandoned funeral home that seemed to have unexpectedly closed down amidst negligence lawsuits and state board allegations of inadequate business practices. It appears that due to these pending and ongoing legal battles, the funeral home suddenly closed down, and therefore, the place had left everything behind, much of it still intact.
On the rural backroads of South Carolina sits an abandoned funeral home with a rich history that began nearly 40 years ago. Before establishing his funeral home business, the original owner and his wife owned and operated the only floral shop in town. The couple had been married for more than 50 years and had one son together.
As a funeral home director, he was quite successful and became revered in his small community as a leader and an elder until he died in the early 2000s. The floral shop closed down, and the funeral home was passed down to their only child, the son. The funeral home remained profitable for nearly two decades with the son as the owner and sole proprietor. The business was continuously mentioned in local newspapers until suddenly all operations ceased in September 2020.
As a result of the sudden closure, many in the community speculated as to what had happened. Most people assumed that the COVID-19 pandemic may have been the cause, however, further research revealed that the funeral business had been in a dire financial crisis, mainly due to several lawsuits and heavy fines, sanctioned by the state for various violations, such as expired funeral license and not having full-time manager on site. Based on an investigation of the business itself just a few years prior, the state board ordered the funeral home owner to appear before the courts. He was eventually fined thousands of dollars and agreed to comply with the court order to have a full-time manager on site during business hours. Furthermore, he agreed to remain compliant with the annual license renewal process, since he had previously let it lapse on more than one occasion since taking the business reigns from his father.
Although we have no definitive proof that the funeral home closed as a direct result of the lawsuits, litigations, or the state board violations, we did uncover some paperwork regarding the lawsuits.
From what we read it seems that just prior to its closure, there had been several lawsuits filed against the funeral home by decedents families for various reasons, mainly due to fraudulent activities. No matter the reason one thing remains certain, there is no doubt that the closure of the funeral home is a significant loss to the small community. Even now, it seems that the business could reopen at any time given everything left behind with some of it even still set up. And that’s going to bring us to the end of today’s video on the abandoned funeral home that closed amidst state law violations and several lawsuits. With everything left behind including caskets, two chapels, a fully stocked embalming room, and cremains, helped make it one of the best.
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Shout out to @abandonedsoutheast for this one and for all the work!